A national restaurant trade group and owners of some local restaurant chains are waging a high-stakes and last-ditch legal battle to prevent D.C. residents from voting on whether the city should do away with the tipped wage.
On Wednesday the D.C. Court of Appeals heard arguments over a pair of lawsuits brought by the restaurant industry seeking to keep what’s known as Initiative 82 off the November ballot. If approved by voters, the initiative would slowly phase out the tipped wage system, which allows restaurant to pay workers who collect tips $5.05 an hour, and to make up the difference if their tips don’t get them to the city’s $16.10 minimum wage. If implemented, the initiative would instead require that those workers be paid the city’s prevailing minimum wage by 2027.
A D.C. Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuits last month. An appeals court ruling on the suits is expected quickly, as the elections board says it has to start printing ballots by mid-September. “We will proceed with a sense of urgency,” said Associate Judge Corinne Beckwith after the hour-long arguments on Wednesday morning.
The lawsuits largely center on procedural matters, saying that the D.C. Board of Elections erred earlier this spring when it allowed Initiative 82 to be placed on the November ballot. Proponents of the initiative, led by the D.C. Committee to Build a Better Restaurant Industry, submitted more than 33,000 signatures from registered voters to put the measure on the ballot, but...
Authorities say the fuel shipment in question belonged to a private trading firm, not the state or national oil company, as investigators seize devices and warn of strict action against misinformat...