Tucson Residents Give Our Lawless GQP-Controlled Legislature The Finger, Pass A $15 Minimum Wage Initiative 2-1

Last month, a judge blocked Arizona from collecting $1.1 million from the city of Flagstaff to compensate for its minimum wage which is higher than the state’s rate, ruling that the state missed a deadline for the assessment and was stretching a law targeting higher voter-approved city wages to collect its indirect costs.

The Arizona Republic reported, Judge sides with Flagstaff over Arizona in minimum wage fight:

But the ruling from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith released on Monday sidestepped the question of whether the assessments are unconstitutional.

Our lawless GQP-controlled legislature violated the Voter Protection Act by attempting to revise the citizen initiative passed Minimum Wage Act.

The state minimum wage reached $12 an hour in 2020 with inflation adjustments after that and now stands at $12.15 an hour. Flagstaff voters in 2016 phased in higher city minimum wages, which hit $15 per hour this year with annual increases thereafter.

Smith’s ruling said a law enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2019 targeting higher city minimum wages set a July 31 deadline for setting the yearly assessment. The state missed that deadline.

The judge also said the state can’t charge for the indirect costs of Flagstaff’s higher minimum wage, which is what it did in coming up with the $1.1 million figure. The state is specifically exempt from paying the higher minimum wage the city’s voters approved in 2016, and the law authorizing assessments does not specifically say the state can calculate the indirect costs of paying contractors.

“When the Legislature wants to capture direct and indirect costs/expenditures, it uses those words,” Smith wrote. “It would be unusual to interpret the words’ absence from (the 2019 law) as also capturing direct and indirect costs/expenditures.”

Attorneys for the city of Flagstaff had argued that the Voter Protection Act barred the state from penalizing cities for their higher minimum wages because they are specifically authorized by a 2006 voter initiative.

But they also said the judge could rule in the city’s favor if he found the state missed the deadline or wasn’t authorized to collect for higher indirect costs.

When Smith ruled for the city on the deadline and indirect costs issues, he was able to avoid deciding whether the assessment was unconstitutional. He wrote that judges generally prefer to sidestep such constitutional questions if they can.

But he warned that if he accepted the state’s argument that its undefined indirect costs for higher pay for contractors and other expenses, it could trigger the Voter Protection Act. That constitutional provision bars the Legislature from changing voter-approved laws.

“That is difficult to reconcile with Proposition 202, which allowed municipalities to set higher minimum wages,” he wrote. “The State’s interpretation would let municipalities do so only if they agreed to pay assessments that they cannot contest and that may have only the foggiest connection to the minimum wage.

“That could be repugnancy that the VPA prohibits,” the ruling said.

[T]he ruling puts the state in a conundrum, said Roopali Desai, Flagstaff’s attorney, especially because calculating indirect costs is a complex process and because of Smith’s concern over it violating the constitution.

“Our hope is that they realize that no matter which way they go about doing this, it’s going to be a problem and violates the law,” Desai said.

Arizona voters first passed a state minimum wage law in 2006 and raised rates again in 2016. In the 2006 initiative, voters allowed cities to set higher rates.

Tucson voters are scheduled to consider their own higher minimum wage in November. Monday’s ruling removes, at least for now, the argument that the city may face higher costs if it passes its own higher wage law.

Our partisan hack Attorney General “Nunchucks,” Mark Brnovich, of course filed an appeal on behalf of our lawless authoritarian GQP-controlled legislature and governor. Arizona Appeals for Power to Penalize Flagstaff’s $15 Wage Law. That appeal is still pending.

UPDATE: The Arizona Daily Star reports, Voters pass Tucson’s $15 minimum wage proposition:

Tucson’s minimum wage will be gradually increased to $15 an hour after city voters approved the pay measure on Tuesday.

About 60% of tallied responses voted ‘yes’ for Proposition 206 — the ballot initiative to gradually raise Tucson’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 — while about 32% of voters voted ‘no’, according to unofficial general election results released by the Tucson City Clerk’s office Tuesday night. Nearly 8% of voters didn’t submit a vote on the item.

The proposition will first increase the minimum wage to $13 in April 2022 and eventually reach $15 in January 2025. After that, wages will increase based on the rate of inflation.

C.J. Boyd, the campaign manager for the group behind the ballot initiative, Tucson Fight for 15, celebrated with staff and supporters of the campaign Tuesday night.

“So many people came together to make this happen,” he said. “We got over 100 local businesses to sign on to this. I think that was really important to make it clear that this is something where the whole community benefits from it.”

Arizona’s current minimum wage is $12.15 an hour, and the Prop. 206 group estimates about 85,000 city residents will get raises.

The ordinance also calls for the city to set up an office to investigate complaints from employees who believe they haven’t been paid properly while giving jurisdiction to the City Court to hear civil cases alleging violation of the measure.

Proponents of the initiative say the minimum wage raise is long overdue to keep up with the cost of living in Tucson, while opponents say the measure creates an administrative burden on business owners.

Prop 206 also impacts tipped workers. State law allows tipped workers to be paid $3 less than non-tipped workers, and the bill maintains that difference by allowing tipped workers to earn $12 an hour when minimum wage reaches $15.

The measure also requires workers scheduled for at least three hours who have their shift canceled with less than 24 hours’ notice to be compensated for three hours’ worth of pay.