Goldy

One of the cruel ironies of the minimum wage battle is that some of the people most responsible for winning a $15 minimum wage aren’t benefiting from the victory. It is fair to argue that without the SeaTac $15 minimum wage initiative helping to define the terms of the debate, Kshama Sawant might never have won her $15-fueled run for Seattle city council. And had not both the SeaTac initiative and Sawant won in November, the mayor and the council would not have felt nearly as much pressure to pass a $15 ordinance so quickly, if at all.

Yet thanks to a post-election ruling from a King County Superior Court judge, thousands of Sea-Tac Airport workers have not been delivered the wages and workplace protections the initiative promised.

Plaintiffs argued, and the judge agreed, that RCW 14.08.330 grants the port “exclusive jurisdiction” over airport operations. And the plain language of that statute certainly appears to support that interpretation. But an amicus brief (pdf) filed by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson says not so fast.

Ferguson argues that the apparently plain language of RCW 14.08.330 must be interpreted in conjunction with conflicting statutes, specifically RCW 49.46.120, which allows local minimum wage laws that are more favorable to workers to supersede state and federal minimum wage laws. Ferguson’s argument is a clever one. Yes, RCW 14.08.330 grants the port “exclusive jurisdiction,” but only “subject to federal and state laws, rules, and regulations.” RCW 49.46.120 is a state law, and one that grants minimum wage jurisdiction to local governments. Connect the dots, reasons Ferguson, and RCW 14.08.330 grants minimum wage jurisdiction to the City of SeaTac via RCW 49.46.120.

Ferguson argues that since the statutes conflict, “the Court has to look to the legislative intent in passing RCW 14.08.330 to discern the precise scope of the Port’s ‘exclusive jurisdiction:'”

Here, this Court has already explained the Legislature’s intent in enacting RCW 14.08.330. Shortly after the law passed, this Court held: “The effect of this section, when read in the light of the entire Revised Airports Act, is merely to preclude [other local governments] from interfering with respect to the operation of the Seattle-Tacoma airport.” King Cnty. v. Port of Seattle, 37 Wn.2d 338, 348, 223 P.2d 834 4 (1950).

Under Ferguson’s reading, unless SeaTac’s minimum wage ordinance interferes with the operation of the airport, it is permissible. Which brings us to Ferguson’s second—and I think more persuasive—argument: that without jurisdiction there can be no “exclusive” jurisdiction.

For years, port commissioners had insisted that they had no legal authority to set a minimum wage at the airport, so sorry, there was nothing they could do about the horrendous wages and job conditions of airport workers. It was only after the SeaTac initiative passed that the port reversed itself, not only arguing that it, not the City of SeaTac, had jurisdiction over minimum wages at the airport, but joining Alaska Airlines and the other plaintiffs in arguing that such jurisdiction needn’t be considered at all.

The judge agreed, ruling that RCW 14.08.330 gave the port exclusive jurisdiction while leaving unsettled whether the port had the legal authority to set a minimum wage.

Citing both prior case law and, well, logic, Ferguson calls bullshit on that:

If the Port has no jurisdiction over such wages, it cannot as a matter of logic have exclusive jurisdiction over them. And as a matter of legislative intent, if the Legislature gave the Port no authority over this topic, it is hard to imagine that the Legislature intended to oust the authority of other local governments recognized in RCW 49.46.120.

[…] In interpreting the Port’s powers, it is important to remember that: “The Port, as a municipal corporation, is limited in its powers to those necessarily or fairly implied in or incident to the powers expressly granted, and also those essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation. If there is a doubt as to whether the power is granted, it must be denied.” Port of Seattle v. Washington Utils. & Transp. Comm’n 92 Wn.2d 789, 597 P.2d 383 (1979).

In essence, Ferguson argues that for the court to rule the port has “exclusive” jurisdiction over setting a minimum wage at the airport, the court must first rule that the port has any jurisdiction over setting a minimum wage at all. And nothing in state statute explicitly grants the port such power. Therefore, says Ferguson, the limited scope of the port’s “exclusive jurisdiction” leaves jurisdiction over the minimum wage in the hands of the City of SeaTac.

Clever, clever.

Of course, I’ve only summarized the major points of Ferguson’s 17-page brief. There’s a lot more to it. So read it for yourself.

As for the plaintiffs, their reply (pdf) is perhaps telling:

Neither of the arguments made by the Attorney General was raised by any party to this appeal.  This Court does not consider arguments that are raised only by amici curiae.

The plaintiffs go on to insist that the two statutes should not be read together, and that the scope of the port’s employment regulation authority is not at issue in the appeal. It is largely a procedural defense against some very compelling arguments.

So, how will the court rule? Initiative sponsors seem pretty confident that they will prevail on appeal. Put a gun to my head and I’d have to agree. But this isn’t a slam dunk case.

Oral arguments will be held before the court on June 26, with a decision expected later this year.

By a 5-4 vote yesterday afternoon, the King County Council voted to adopt a Metro funding plan that would implement the first round of scheduled cuts in September, but would defer adopting further cuts in the hope that increased sales tax revenues, higher fares, transfers from capital funds, and additional savings could close the gap. King County Executive Dow Constantine immediately vetoed the plan:

“We need a reliable way to pay for bus service – but until then, we shouldn’t spend money we don’t have, we shouldn’t use one-time money to pay ongoing expenses, and decisions to save or cut service should be based on objective criteria and data, not on politics,” said Executive Constantine. “This ordinance falls short on all counts. I must respectfully veto this legislation, and ask that the Council keep working on a solution that is responsible and sustainable.”

Council member Rod Dembowski spearheaded the plan along with the four suburban Republicans, and no doubt his intentions are pure. His objective is to avoid unnecessary pain. The problem is, without substantial additional revenue, much of the pain will be unavoidable. And by putting off the decision as long as possible, we risk lulling voters and Metro riders into a state of complacency.

The anti-Prop 1 folks like to promote this meme that new revenue is unnecessary—that if Metro just tightens its belt a bit, everything will be okay. For example, yesterday the Seattle Times editorial board urged Metro to “begin the hard work of reforming the agency,” once again ignoring the fact that in response to collapsing revenue and a state performance audit, Metro has implemented substantial reforms that achieved hundreds of millions of dollars in long term cost savings.

The Demobowski plan, unfortunately, just feeds into this fiction that Metro has a spending problem, not a revenue one.

The other Democrats on the council proposed an alternative plan that would have adopted the proposed cuts, phased in over the next year and a half or so, but would have also given Constantine the flexibility to delay cuts if revenues rebound or cost savings materialize. That seems like a more responsible approach to long term planning, and a more realistic presentation to the public of what most likely lies in store.

A Lee County, Florida man shot and killed his wife and three daughters—ages 10, 6, and 2—over the weekend, before turning the gun on himself. Sheriff Mike Scott called it the single-largest mass shooting in Lee County history.

“This is everyday USA behind me,” Scott said on Sunday as he was standing front of the crime scene. “Something snapped, something went terribly wrong. And we’ll never know the answer to why.”

No, probably not. But we do know the answer how: He had a gun. Whatever it was that set the shooter off—alcohol, mental illness, a domestic dispute—it was the immediate availability of the gun (which he no doubt kept to protect his family) that made his awful impulse so deadly.

To emphasize that point, a neighbor, Karen Downare, is quoted remembering the shooter as a “kind, gentle, loving dad.”

“If you would have told me that it was possible for him to ever do this, I would have told you you’re a liar,” she insisted. “That it was not possible for that man to do that to his family.”

Tragically, yes, it was possible, Karen. With a gun.

 

Various parties representing Seattle’s taxi and for-hire industry will be filing suit today in King County Superior Court seeking to block a referendum submitted by the so-called “ride-share” companies Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar. The referendum seeks to overturn Seattle’s recently passed ordinance that would legalize these app-based “transportation network companies,” but subject them to regulation and caps. The taxi industry argues that the referendum is outside the scope of the initiative process.

And they have a pretty damn strong case.

To win the relief they seek, the plaintiffs need to prevail on two points: that pre-election review of local initiatives and referenda is both proper and ripe, and that this referendum is outside the scope of local initiative powers.

The first point is a no-brainer. As Tim Eyman knows, local initiatives are blocked all the time. And since simply certifying the TNC’s referendum for the ballot blocks the ordinance from going into effect, there is no question about ripeness. Further, there is plenty of legal precedent for challenging a measure on scope once the ballot title has been assigned. Ripeness is an easy win for the plaintiffs.

On the second point, the plaintiffs make two arguments, one stronger than the other. The first is that in granting authority directly to the council, the state legislature has superseded the people’s right of initiative. That was the argument that killed Eyman’s local red light camera initiatives. But in the red light camera case, that exclusive authority was granted explicitly to local legislative bodies, where as the plaintiffs in this case argue that the exclusive authority is implicit based on the sort of administrative powers granted. There is legal precedent for this sort of implicit exclusivity, but it’s not an open and shut case.

But the second argument is much stronger. Initiatives and referenda are limited to subjects that are legislative only, whereas the recently passed taxi and for-hire ordinance is clearly administrative, seeking to carry out policy already enacted by the legislature and the city. In Seattle Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council v. City of Seattle, the court laid out the following test:

The power to be exercised is legislative in its nature if it prescribes a new policy or plan, whereas, it is administrative in its nature if it merely pursues a plan already adopted by the legislative body itself, or some power superior to it.

Both the state and the city had already adopted the policy to regulate the taxi and for-hire industry. Inspection, licensing, insurance, and caps are all currently in place. Indeed, under existing law, TNC operators are clearly defined as for-hire drivers. So there is little question that the recently passed ordinance seeks to administer existing policy rather than define a new one.

I’ve spent a lot of time covering such scope challenges (including that of my own “Horse’s Ass” initiative). The plaintiffs here have a very compelling case. If I had to bet money, I’d say the plaintiffs prevail.

And that’s something that Mayor Ed Murray and the city council should consider before caving in to TNC demands. Right now they are negotiating a compromise with the TNCs under threat of a referendum that would upend the entire ordinance. But if the referendum is outside the scope, then the TNCs have no leverage.

As for how the city should deal with the TNCs continued refusal to obey the law, well, Miami has an interesting solution….

 

Proverbs 21:19
It’s better to live alone in the desert than with a quarrelsome, complaining wife.

Discuss.

For all the hoo-hah over threatened challenges to Seattle’s historic $15 minimum wage ordinance, there will be no minimum wage measures on the ballot this fall. Nada. Bubkes. Zilch.

Shortly after a group of local business owners calling themselves “Forward Seattle” announced a proposed charter amendment to instead raise the city’s minimum wage to $12.50 over five years, City Attorney Pete Holmes let it be known that voter-proposed charter amendments can only be run in odd-numbered years. Holmes is out of town and unavailable for comment, but a quick perusal of the city charter and the Revised Code of Washington suggests he’s right. Article XX, Section 2 of the charter states that amendments proposed by voters are to be ratified at “the next general municipal election,” while RCW 29A.04.330 clearly says that city general elections are to be held in “odd-numbered years.” And in case you think the intent is vague, Article XX, Section 1 makes a clear distinction from council-proposed amendments, which are to be ratified in the “next general state or municipal election.” There’s really no other way to read this language.

Which is really pretty amusing given how Forward Seattle’s home page makes a point of boasting: “We’ve met with experts, we’ve hired consultants, and we’re ready to make this happen.” Sounds like their experts and consultants owe them a refund.

Of course, I suppose this is also embarrassing for 15Now.org, which has been gathering signatures for its own impossible minimum wage charter amendment—but no more embarrassing than it is to all the political and business insiders who allowed $15 Now to bully them into compromise by holding an empty gun to their heads. A couple weeks ago the chatter in City Hall was that $15 Now would go to the ballot almost regardless of what the council passed. Didn’t anybody bother to read the charter and make sure the socialists had their ducks in a row?

I didn’t. But I’m just some dumb blogger, not one of the high priced consultants and attorneys that helped broker this deal.

Why Holmes never bothered to tell $15 Now that its charter amendment would have to wait until 2015, I don’t know. But with yesterday’s statement he kinda did $15 Now a favor. While Kshama Sawant and the rest of $15 Now’s leadership has already declared victory, there remains a lot of pressure from within the rank and and file of the organization to continue to the 2014 ballot with their more sweeping measure. But now we know that’s impossible. Divisive debate averted.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, it would be virtually impossible at this late date to go through all the procedural hurdles to file a city initiative and gather enough signatures to qualify for the November 2014 ballot without the implicit cooperation of the city council. Which nobody would get. So there will be no minimum wage ballot measures this fall.

As for yesterday’s other “news,” that HA namesake Tim Eyman has filed an initiative to the legislature seeking to preempt municipal minimum wage laws, well, who the fuck cares? Eyman files dozens of initiatives a year trolling for financial backers, and this one is weak even by his spindly standards.

The minimum wage is hugely popular statewide, last passing by a two-to-one margin in 1998, winning all 39 counties. So who would put money behind this dog? Not the Washington Restaurant Association, which I’m told tacitly agreed not the challenge Seattle’s ordinance in exchange for the longer phase-in and temporary tip credit. Longtime Eyman sugar daddy Michael Dunmire is dead. This isn’t part of Kemper Freman Jr.’s trains = communism obsession. AWB has been quietly advising members to distance themselves from Eyman’s antics.

Eyman is nothing without other people’s money, and his funding sources have been drying up. 2014 will be the first year without an Eyman initiative on the ballot since 2006. He’s a paper tiger. Good riddance.

How was an even larger tragedy avoided?

Jon Meis, a student working as a building monitor, pepper-sprayed the shooter as he stopped to reload, then put him in a chokehold and took him to the ground, according to police and a friend who spoke with Meis after the shooting. Then other students and faculty members rushed to hold the shooter down until police arrived.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre infamously proclaimed: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Jon Meis’s conscientious act of civic heroism pretty much disproves that.

And it also proves how effective pepper spray can be as a weapon. A mere civilian used pepper spray to disable a gunman. Police officers throughout the nation might want to take this weapon more seriously the next time they are tempted to indiscriminately mace an old lady or a peacefully assembled group of nonresisting student protesters.

Now that the $15 minimum wage ordinance has passed, Seattle Times editorial columnist Jonathan Martin predicts that “Seattle’s politics are going to snap back to the center…”

With an alliance of big labor and Occupy Wall Street activism, the radical $15 wage idea shot from outer political orbit to inevitability in little more than a year. Never mind that it is an unproven experiment, with as much potential to close businesses as it has to boost low-wage workers’ paychecks.

But as the $15 movement held a dance party, literally, at City Hall on Monday, I could hear an almost sigh.

It was the sound of Seattle’s politics — after a spin around the dance floor with the far-left — snapping back to its more natural state of deliberate, bland, center-left policies.

Sigh. I want to like Martin, I really do. But there’s something about joining that paper’s editorial board that turns its writers a little stupid.

First of all, “unproven experiment” is redundant. That’s the whole purpose of conducting an experiment: To prove something. And yet in the exact same sentence in which Martin goes out of his way to double emphasize the unknown consequences of a $15 minimum wage (it’s not just an experiment, mind you, but an unproven experiment!), he goes on to assert certainty as to its outcome: “as much potential to close businesses as it has to boost low-wage workers’ paychecks.” The experiment is totally unproven, says Martin, yet the relative probability of potential outcomes is totally known.

Um… huh?

Indeed, if you dissect the logic of that sentence further, what it is actually asserting is that the $15 minimum wage will close businesses. We absolutely know that it will “boost low-wage workers’ paychecks”—that’s merely the mechanism of raising the minimum wage. So to say that it has “as much potential to close businesses as it has to boost low-wage workers’ paychecks,” is to express certainty that it will close businesses.

Hell, that doesn’t sound “unproven” at all. At least to Martin.

But I digress. My real beef with Martin’s column is not that sloppy sentence. It’s with his equally sloppy presumption that the $15 minimum wage is somehow outside of the center of Seattle politics.

It was a deal brokered by the mayor between business and labor leaders. Polls showed the proposal enjoying overwhelming public support. It passed the city council by a unanimous 9-0 vote. What could be more politically centrist than that? Yes, the speed in which we moved on the issue—one year and four days from when striking fast food workers first made the $15 an hour demand to the moment the city council met it—was remarkable for process-obssessed Seattle. But that was a testament to the speed in which the issue achieved consensus.

No, there’s nothing leftist or “radical” about a minimum wage or a millionaires tax—certainly not here in Seattle, where such proposals pass easily. Indeed, if anything is far outside the center of Seattle politics it is the Seattle Times editorial board and its relentlessly anti-tax, anti-goverment, anti-Seattle agenda. I mean, this is a paper whose publisher has been one of the leading national voices in favor of eliminating the inheritance tax at a time when income and wealth inequality is growing to such extremes as to threaten the very being of our democracy.

Now thats radical!

Martin’s effort to define policy as left, right, or center is purely arbitrary, and totally detached from public opinion. He scoffs at the notion of council member* Kshama Sawant’s proposed “millionaires tax,” yet if we were to put a 5 percent tax on incomes over $1 million on Seattle’s ballot in 2016, do you think it would pass? Of course it would! Because here in Seattle, taxing the income of the wealthy is a centrist policy!

On economic issues, it is the Seattle Times editorial board that is far outside the mainstream.

* Yes, that’s right, she’s a council member. 93,682 Seattleites voted for Sawant. So how far outside the center of Seattle politics could she really be?

In the immediate wake of the passage of Seattle’s highest in the nation $15 an hour minimum wage, the International Franchise Association announced plans to file suit against the ordinance on the grounds that it discriminates against franchise owners. From their press release:

“The Seattle City Council and Mayor Murray’s plan would force the 600 franchisees in Seattle, which own 1,700 franchise locations employing 19,000 workers, to adopt the full $15 minimum wage in 3 years, while most other small business owners would have seven years to adopt the $15 wage. … The City Council’s action today is unfair, discriminatory and a deliberate attempt to achieve a political agenda at the expense of small franchise business owners.”

Uh-huh. First of all, the minimum wage ordinance does discriminate against franchisees. And if franchisees were a protected class—like gays or women or minorities—they might have a legal point. But they’re not. So they don’t. Our laws pick winners and losers all the time, for example tax credits written specifically to benefit Boeing (though without ever mentioning Boeing by name). Indeed, if the council had passed an ordinance applying a $15 minimum wage only to franchises, that would have been legal too.

So they’re going to lose their lawsuit. But that’s besides the point.

No, the real news here is that the industry association that claims to represent the interests both franchisers and franchisees—powerful corporations like McDonalds, Subway, and Dominos—is fighting to have their workers phased in to $15 over seven years instead of three. That’s it: $16.49 by 2021 versus $15 by 2017. They’re not fighting $15 at all. They just want to be treated like everybody else.

Even the fast food industry is prepared to capitulate on $15. Lawmakers elsewhere should follow suit.

I’m busy today desperately trying to meet a deadline on a freelance piece (damn, I write slowly), so if you’re jonesing for more Goldy just head on over to the KTTH website to listen to me “debate” conservative host Ben Shapiro yesterday shortly after passage of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage. At least, they’re calling it a debate. I was calling in via cell phone from a noisy hallway outside council chambers, so to me it was just a difficult to hear phone call.

But whatever. I haven’t had time to listen to it yet, but I’m sure I did fine. If you can bear to listen to 20 minutes of the Ben Shapiro Show, let me know how you think I did.

A lot of things had to come together just right to lead towards yesterday’s 9-0 passage of Seattle’s historic $15 an hour minimum wage. But if you want to really piss off righties, you might want to remind them of the integral role that former ACORN activists played in sparking the $15 movement.

The very notion of demanding a $15 wage—the number 15 itself—came out of the first fast food strike in New York City on November 29, 2012, a strike organized by New York Communities for Change. And NYCC itself was organized by former ACORN activists, rising from the ashes of the right-wing witch hunt that dried up ACORN’s funding and forced its collapse.

Ironically, after ACORN’s demise, NYCC’s leaders decided to refocus on their community organizing roots, a focus that led it to its efforts to organize fast food workers. NYCC was also one of the first organizations to provide support to Occupy Wall Street, helping that spontaneous movement grow and spread. And it was on Occupy Seattle that Kshama Sawant and her Socialist Alternative comrades first cut their local organizing teeth. Thus both Sawant’s stunning election and Seattle’s highly successful fast food strikes can trace their roots at least indirectly to NYCC’s post-ACORN grassroots activism.

In a way, you could even make an argument that Seattle’s $15 minimum wage might never have happened without ACORN’s collapse! So, hey… thanks, righties!

Okay, the council meeting hasn’t even started yet, but its a festive atmosphere in council chambers as the throng of $15 minimum wage supporters gathers for the inevitable.

Stay tuned and I’ll let you know when it’s official, as well as fill you in on various updates.

UPDATE 1:59PM: Just like me, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has already released a celebratory statement:

Today’s vote in Seattle will go down in history as a milestone in the struggle to raise wages and ensure fair pay for all workers. It is proof that when working people organize and make their voices heard, we all benefit.

While Republicans in Congress fail to act, Seattle, along with other cities and states around the country, is ensuring that workers receive a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work. We have already seen progress in states from Hawaii to Minnesota, and we will continue to fight to provide every worker with a good living wage and an opportunity to achieve the American Dream.

UPDATE 2:23PM: Unlike previous council meetings, Subway franchisees and other business representatives seem to have abandoned the chambers to minimum wage advocates. No doubt there was plenty of pro-business lobbying behind the scenes, but they appear to have given up on making their case in public. Public testimony continues.

UPDATE 2:39PM: Council member Nick Licata: “Unfortunately, I was unable to attend last week for the vote on training wages.” Council member Tim Burgess: “Good.”

UPDATE 3:15PM: Council member Kshama Sawant closes her speech in favor of the ordinance: “Fifteen dollars in Seattle is just the beginning. We have an entire world to win.”

UPDATE 3:39PM: It’s official! Ordinance passes 9-0! Audience cheers, than quickly files out, leaving council to continue other business.

At some point over the past several days, 15Now.org cleverly transposed its Twitter avatar to read “15won.” But that subtle declaration of victory hasn’t stopped the organization from pushing council members to make the minimum wage ordinance even better:

Retweet if you agree @bruceharrell @Jean_Godden @CouncilmanTim should vote against delaying start date & training wages! @15forSeattle

— 15 Now (@FifteenNow) June 2, 2014

The best defense is a good offense, and all that. Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant and her 15 Now comrades have been roundly criticized by the establishment types for continuing forward with their initiative even as a business/labor compromise inched toward passage. But it’s an “or else” strategy that has been incredibly effective in defending against unacceptable concessions.

The full city council will officially pass the ordinance this afternoon, making Seattle the first city in America to adopt a $15 an hour minimum wage. And then the real celebration can begin.

Luke 19:27
Now bring me the enemies who didn’t want me to be their king. Kill them while I watch!”

Discuss.