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Judge rules that ‘Tipped Workers Protection Act’ will stay on November ballot [1]
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Date: 2024-08-06
A judge has ruled that Proposition 138, also known as the “Tipped Workers Protection Act” will remain on the ballot for the November election.
Raise the Wage AZ, a political action committee that advocates for wage increases for service workers, challenged Prop. 138 in court back in June, claiming that it was “sufficiently deceptive to the point of fraud and creates a significant danger of electorate confusion and unfairness.”
In the suit, Raise the Wage AZ asked the court to declare that the proposed constitutional amendment violates the state constitution and to bar the secretary of state from certifying it to be placed on the November general election ballot.
Raise the Wage AZ has gathered signatures to put a ballot measure of its own called the “One Fair Wage Act” to voters in November and claimed in its suit that placing the competing measure on the ballot “will impede the exercise of a free elective franchise.”
But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson denied the challenge in a Tuesday morning ruling, writing that “Plaintiffs have failed to cite to specific authority which would permit this Court, or any court, to remove an Initiative or proposed Legislative Constitutional Amendment because it interferes with or makes passage of a competing ballot measure more or less likely.”
Thompson is the same judge who repeatedly shot down Kari Lake’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2022 election for Arizona governor.
The Raise the Wage ballot measure would increase the state minimum wage from $14.35 to $18 per hour and would incrementally lower the amount of a worker’s tips restaurants could use to reconcile their wages with the state minimum, until eventually employers would have to pay all workers the state minimum wage, regardless of whether they receive tips.
Currently, state law allows restaurants to pay tipped workers $3 less than minimum wage and use the workers’ tips to backfill up to the minimum wage.
In contrast, Prop. 138, which the Arizona Restaurant Association brought to the state legislature, would allow employers to pay tipped workers 25% less than minimum wage — as long as they make at least $2 per hour more than the minimum wage with tips included.
Jim Barton, and attorney for Raise the Wage AZ, argued in the suit challenging the competing measure that “it is likely to mislead voters to believe that it will protect tipped workers, when in fact, it exploits tipped workers by subjecting them to an even lower minimum wage than the current subminimum wage that they can be paid and by adding it to the constitution.”
But Thompson found that the competing measure was “neither misleading, deceptive nor fraudulent.”
“Each has its own completely different title, a different approach to minimum wage policy and stated means of achieving its purpose,” Thompson wrote. “Both ballot referrals are the process of legitimate, recognized procedures for placing a referral on the ballot.”
In April, Rep. Analise Ortiz, D-Phoenix said she felt bamboozled by a group promoting the resolution that would later become Prop 138 after multiple people wearing “Save Our Tips” shirts endorsed the legislation in front of the House Commerce Committee in March. Those advocates of the act failed to disclose to the committee that they were either members of the Arizona Restaurant Association or were upper management — and not servers — at restaurants owned by ARA board members.
The measure received support from all Republicans and a few Democrats when it passed through the House of Representatives by a vote of 35-24 in April.
After being voted down once in the Senate, Senate Concurrent Resolution 1040, now known as Prop. 138, finally passed on June 12, with only Republicans voting in favor.
The Arizona Restaurant Association praised Thompson’s decision in a Tuesday statement.
“This was a bogus lawsuit from the start, and the Arizona Restaurant Association thanks the court for granting our request to have the complaint promptly denied,” Steve Chucri, president and CEO of the trade group, said in the statement. “It is clear the out-of-state special interests behind the lawsuit simply don’t want Arizona voters to have their say this November on the Tipped Workers Protection Act.”
In the statement, Danny Seiden, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said that the state’s largest business group supports the Tipped Workers Protection Act because it will “boost” pay for workers who rely on tips, protect their jobs and keep down costs for small businesses and the people who patronize them.
“This is a balanced, bipartisan and Arizona-led ballot measure, and we are confident it will be supported by voters this fall,” Chucri said.
While Thompson wrote that the Restaurant Association-backed measure was not misleading to voters, he added that the short title the “Tipped Workers Protection Act,” which Raise the Wage took issue with, would not be printed on November ballots.
“The political views of whether the goal of tipped worker protection is best accomplished by adopting or rejecting the proposed Amendment should not be conflated with rejection of the proposed Amendment before it even appears on the ballot,” Thompson wrote.
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[1] Url:
https://azmirror.com/2024/08/06/judge-rules-that-tipped-workers-protection-act-will-stay-on-november-ballot/
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