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Minimum Sense

Suddenly, the Democrats who dominate the Washington, D.C., City Council seem unwilling to increase the minimum wage for tipped workers — despite their official support for legislative minimum wage rate increases.

And a vote of the citizens. 

Initiative 77, which passed easily last month, requires restaurant employers to incrementally increase the “tipped wage” until rates “reach what will be the uniform minimum of $15 an hour by 2025.”

“Initiative 77 is something I believe will be very harmful to our restaurants and, more importantly, our restaurant workers,” argues Councilman Jack Evans, one of three council members pledging repeal. 

A spokesperson for One Fair Wage DC, calling a repeal “deeply undemocratic,” notes that “D.C. voters don’t like it when Republicans in Congress do it, and we trust council will not stoop to that level.”

Yet it would not be “the first time the city’s lawmakers overturned a decision by the electorate,” the Washington Post reminds readers, citing “a decision in 2001 when the D.C. Council overturned term limits approved by voters.”*

I’m all for ballot measures to decide any issue the people have a right to decide … limited by all of our inalienable rights as individuals. Minimum wage laws constitute an abuse of our First Amendment right to association, which neither legislatures nor voters may legitimately abridge. 

That the council doesn’t recognize this right of association, yet nonetheless thinks it should nullify a vote of the people tells you everything you need to know about the sorry state of representation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

 


* And even quoting moi on the incredible hypocrisy dating back 17 years: “If you’re in a city struggling to get representation in the first place, that’s a terrible signal to say that your own local officials don’t respect their own citizens.”

 

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Democracy — Oh, My!

The President-​elect has had some difficulty booking celebrity acts for his inauguration. And instead of taking this as a cue to trim down on celebratory excess, his team has extended the guest performer list to include New York’s world-​famous chorus line dancers, the Rockettes.

The leggy, sequined showgirls might seem a perfect fit for the President-elect’s celebration — more, say, than a ballet troupe, or a string quartet — but one among the Rockettes protested.  Being a part of a performing team might seem a dream job, but not for Phoebe Pearl. She was, she wrote on Instagram, “overwhelmed with emotion,” and not in a good way. She felt “embarrassed and disappointed” that the gig “has been decided” for her.

She feels … coerced.

Dan Avery, writing before Christmas, characterizes the contract as a matter of “force.”

Welcome, Ms. Pearl, to the world that most American workers already know.

But the silliness reached high pitch with actor George Takei, who tweeted: “The members of the Rockettes and the Mormon Tabernacle are like all of us: Forced to go along with something horrible they didn’t choose.”

Democracy — oh, my!

Most people have had to put up with democratic results they did not like. Are Democrats only now understanding this?

To a degree, I sympathize. Which is why I want limits placed on government. Perhaps Democrats should have thought of this every time they cheered as their elected candidates increased presidential power. Did they not realize that someday they might lose?

And if you want a right of refusal, make sure it is in your contract.

The Rockette does not have a leg to stand on.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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