Group halts Arizona minimum wage ballot campaign hours before judge rules against it

Raise the Wage AZ announced Thursday morning it would withdraw its submitted signatures for a planned ballot measure to boost the state's minimum wage — just prior to a judge's ruling it would not qualify for November's ballot.

Several hours after the group released a statement about its intentions, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled against the measure in a consent decree both parties agreed to.

The judge's ruling came after attorney Kory Langhofer filed a proposed judgment to Blaney in the Arizona Restaurant Association's lawsuit challenging the signatures collected by Raise the Wage AZ for the measure. The lawsuit alleged the group didn't submit enough valid signatures based on the association's own investigation, as well as documents it obtained from the Secretary of State's Office indicating problems with the signatures, Langhofer told The Republic.

Minutes after Langhofer spoke with The Arizona Republic about the new court filing, an email from Blaney's judicial assistant indicated the judge agreed with the filing and signed the proposed judgment.

J.P. Martin, spokesperson for the Secretary of State's Office, said the office would stop its evaluation of the signatures, ending the effort to put the measure on the ballot.

One Fair Wage announced it would halt campaign before judge's ruling

The local campaign, part of the national One Fair Wage organization, said in an email sent just after 9 a.m. it would "pivot" away from its ballot measure and instead focus on planned legislation by Democratic Rep. Mariana Sandoval of Goodyear to achieve its goals. Such legislation is unlikely to pass next year unless Democrats this fall win control of the Arizona Legislature for the first time in more than 60 years.

Raise the Wage AZ's planned measure sought to boost the state's minimum pay from the current level of $14.35 an hour to nearly $18 an hour by 2027, with further annual cost-of-living increases. It also sought to eliminate Arizona's tipping credit for employers that allows them to pay less than minimum wage to workers who receive tips.

The group will also campaign against the legislative referral known as the Tipped Workers Protection Act, passed by four Democratic House members and all Republicans in the Legislature earlier this year and supported by the Arizona Restaurant Association.

That measure, which didn't require Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs's signature to make the ballot, would allow employers to reduce tipped workers' pay by 25% below minimum wage if the workers' base salary and tips for a given pay period equals whatever the current minimum wage is, plus $2 an hour extra. Arizona law currently lets employers reduce pay by up to $3 an hour below minimum wage as long as workers make more than minimum wage. The proposal will be on November's ballot as Proposition 138.

Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, told The Republic the group believed it was possible its signature effort would come up short, leading to its decision to curtail the effort in order to stop using up resources to defend the court challenge.

But she said the group is "not deterred at all" in its longer-term effort to pass a statewide law, help defeat the legislative referral and target cities for local minimum-wage increases. The Raise the Wage AZ campaign recruited hundreds of local workers — whom the group paid $25 an hour — to help gather signatures and help the effort in other ways.

"We are determined some people are going to get raises regardless of this," she said, adding that low-wage workers in Arizona are "really struggling" because they don't make a "living wage" in the state.

Heat, other factors led to signature problems

Jayaraman and the group's supporters held a news conference in June about its lawsuit against the legislative ballot referral, claiming Arizona voters would be deceived by its title and alleged benefits. The group wanted the court to strike the measure from the ballot.

But on Aug. 6, Maricopa County Judge Peter Thompson ruled against the lawsuit, pointing out the name of the Legislature's proposal wasn't its official title and writing in his order that the proposal was "neither misleading, deceptive nor fraudulent."

After publication of this article, the Arizona Supreme Court released an order accepting an expedited appeal by Raise the Wage AZ in that case. Because the ballot printing deadline is Aug. 22, the court ordered the Secretary of State's Office to advise it of the last day it could make a decision on the appeal.

The court also gave each side deadlines ahead of the ballot printing deadline to file shortened briefs with their legal arguments. The court said it will consider the matter without a hearing with oral arguments.

Jayaraman said the ruling played a role in the decision to pull out, saying with the potential for both measures to be on the ballot, there was "always that risk" that their effort would fail to gain enough votes in November.

The group estimated it submitted 354,278 valid voter signatures — more than the 255,949 needed to qualify to appear on November's ballot. The Arizona Restaurant Association's lawsuit challenged the official paperwork accompanying the signatures, saying the group failed to disclose whether its collectors were paid, didn't include accurate dates for their work and had other problems. The signatures themselves included duplicates, unregistered voters and incorrect or missing signatures dates, according to the lawsuit.

The group's signature-gathering effort began over a year ago, but supporters said in June it still needed to collect tens of thousands more. The rush to gather more before the July 3 submittal deadline could have affected the quality of the signatures, she said.

Many supporters withered under Arizona's extreme summer heat as they gathered signatures.

"We had a lot of people get sick — you know, heat stroke," she said, though she didn't know if any had been hospitalized. She and two other workers also came down with valley fever, she said.

One Fair Wage's overall efforts won't stop

Despite the decision in Arizona, the national group is still on a "high" over its recent win in Michigan, Jayaraman said.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled late last month that the state's formerly Republican-dominated Legislature wrongly tampered with the group's successful ballot measure there in 2018. She said the group also hoped to see its provisions enacted in Massachusetts and Illinois.

The "silver lining" in Arizona, she said, is that One Fair Wage is creating an "infrastructure" of supporters to further its future goals in Arizona. The group and UnidosUS, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza, would try to "flip the Legislature" Democratic and "put the same initiative on spring 2025 ballots in several cities and counties across the state."

She declined to say which cities it would target first.

Supporters of Legislature's ballot measure urge voters to pass their proposal

The heads of the Arizona Restaurant Association and Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Steve Chucri and Danny Seiden, respectively, condemned One Fair Wage's plan after its announcement and claimed the Tipped Workers Protection Act would prevent layoffs and "costs" to state residents.

"The radicals who want to force a new pay structure down the throats of Arizona small businesses and tipped workers were never honest about their true motivations, so I’m not surprised they also lied about their number of signature petitions for the ballot," Chucri said in a written statement. "Without passage of Prop 138, you can bet the imposters behind One Fair Wage will be back with future attempts to install a California-style pay system in Arizona. “That means lower tips for workers, lost jobs for employers and higher costs for everyone."

Seiden wrote that "it is absolutely critical that voters support Proposition 138 this November to protect tipped workers, save jobs and keep costs down for Arizona families.”

Supporters of Raise the Wage AZ, had argued the legislative proposal would reduce wages for tipped workers, in part because they believe the proposal didn't force employers to add an extra $2 to workers' wages.

Reach the reporter at  [email protected] or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Judge strikes down AZ minimum wage measure after group halts campaign