There were some early signs that the restaurant industry would lay down its arms in the renewed fight to eliminate the tipped minimum wage. That could be about to change.
Valerie Graham, a local bartender and vocal opponent of past efforts to repeal the tipped wage, has filed a challenge to the validity of petitions seeking to hold another ballot initiative on the issue. A spokesman for the D.C. Board of Elections tells Loose Lips that Graham submitted the challenge Monday, but didn’t have any other details on its contents.
The board now has just under a month to decide whether Initiative 82 (a close cousin of its predecessor, Initiative 77) will appear on the June 21 primary ballot, where it is likely to pass once more. The D.C. Council famously overturned the results of the Initiative 77 in 2018, but the blowback to that vote and the election of several more progressive lawmakers indicates another repeal is unlikely.
That’s a big part of the reason why Initiative 82 hasn’t attracted quite the knock-down, drag-out fights that defined the effort to pass Initiative 77, with even staunch proponents of the tipped minimum wage signaling weariness on the issue. But some industry staples formed an anti-Initiative 82 committee last month, and Graham’s petition challenge could be yet more evidence that hospitality leaders are gearing up to provide more serious opposition.
Graham previously filed a lawsuit to block a separate ballot measure repealing the repeal of Initiative 77,...
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