The District of Columbia’s city council took the first step Tuesday to overturn Initiative 77, a measure passed by a 55 percent to 45 percent majority by the Washington voters. If its efforts succeed, as expected, the council will undo the minimum wage protections for tipped workers.
A 2016 living wage law, enacted by the city council, established a series of gradual steps up to a $15 minimum wage for workers — but included a lower $5-an-hour minimum for service workers, so long as their tips brought that total to no less than $15 per hour. Restaurant-workers-rights groups launched a voter initiative to phase out that exemption and, on June 19, 2018, more than 55 percent of those voting on primary day backed the effort. The restaurant industry — and the city council members they have bankrolled — immediately launched an effort to overturn the voters’ will by city council legislation.
On Tuesday afternoon, the city council rejected a proposed compromise and endorsed a full repeal, on an 8 to 5 vote. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has said she will sign the legislation, authored by Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D). Six council Democrats and one independent voted yes on the initial vote; four Democrats and one independent voted no. District voters have not elected a Republican to the council since 2004.
The council reaffirmed this on an 8 to 5 vote later in the afternoon. Final final passage is expected later in the October.
Bowser’s official website highlights the District of Columbia’s demand for statehood — it currently has limited “home rule” but the U.S. Congress can overrule any local action. “DC residents seek full democracy for DC since 1982 and today,” it proclaims. “Mayor Muriel Bowser continues the fight to secure full democracy for DC because it is the most appropriate mechanism to grant U.S. citizens, who reside in the District of Columbia, the full rights and privileges of American citizenship.”
But for Bowser and the majority of council members, that full democracy can be overridden when the restaurant industry does not like what the majority decides.
This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on October 2, 2018. Reprinted with permission.Â
About the Author: Josh Israel has been senior investigative reporter for ThinkProgress since 2012. Previously, he was a reporter and oversaw money-in-politics reporting at the Center for Public Integrity, was chief researcher for Nick Kotz’s acclaimed 2005 book Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America, and was president of the Virginia Partisans Gay & Lesbian Democratic Club.
This week, the majority of the D.C. Council supported a repeal of Initiative 77. Initiative 77 is the ballot measure voters approved in June that eliminates the tipped minimum wage and would gradually phase out the tipped workers’ minimum wage, so that by 2026, all workers are paid the same minimum wage.