Boehner has “always believed that it’s a job killer,” former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, a labor-friendly Republican who is close to Boehner, told The Hill. He pointed to the Congressional Budget Office’s recent report that found that increasing the minimum wage could cost the economy 500,000 jobs.

Some Democrats are optimistic Boehner will cave and allow a vote this year, but the record shows there is little if any daylight between the pro-business Speaker and his conservative conference on this issue.

Boehner made the comments about suicide in an April 1996 interview with The Weekly Standard.

“I’ll commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum-wage bill,” Boehner, then the head of the House Republican Conference, said at the time.

Four months later, President Clinton over Boehner’s objections signed a minimum wage hike into law that lifted the wage by 90 cents, from $4.25 per hour to $5.15.