Last year, California passed a new law establishing a 10-person council to oversee certain labor matters in the state. The primary purpose of the council was to mandate a new minimum wage specific to certain industries, particularly fast-food restaurants. The council would be empowered to raise the minimum wage for those workers by nearly seven dollars to $22 per hour. But business groups that opposed the law quickly gathered enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot next year and the law could not be put into action until after the vote. That clearly frustrated the legislature, and now they’ve snuck a new provision into the state budget that might allow them to get around that roadblock and raise the wages anyway. (Associated Press)

A new California law aimed in part at boosting salaries for fast food workers has been delayed for nearly two years following industry resistance. Now the Democrats who control the state Legislature might have figured out how to raise worker pay anyway.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law last year. It created a 10-member council with the authority, among other things, to increase the state’s $15.50 minimum wage to a maximum of $22 per hour for some fast food workers. Some experts quickly hailed the law as one of the “most significant pieces of employment legislation passed in a generation.”

But unlike in most states, California voters have the power to overturn some laws passed by the Legislature. Business groups who opposed the law gathered enough signatures to qualify a referendum in 2024. In the meantime, the law does not take effect.

The “trick” being employed might take place because, as usual, lawmakers sign bills that they haven’t fully read. Way back when Arnold Schartzenager was the Governor, he had been trying to use an obscure panel called the Industrial Welfare Commission to slow rising wages. The Democrats in the legislature responded by defunding the Commission, effectively putting it out of business to this day. But the budget includes a provision to refund the Commission. If that happens, the group would likely have the power to force the wage increase despite the pending referendum.

This move really flies in the face of the people that California’s legislature allegedly serve. Most polling showed that it wasn’t just the business owners who didn’t want to see wages be forced that much higher overnight. The voters are very likely to approve that referendum. After all, the fast food businesses aren’t going to just pony up that money out of their own pockets. They’ll have to raise prices to make up the difference. And who wants to pay more for food when inflation continues to drive up the price of everything?

In other words, employers didn’t want this wage hike. Consumers didn’t want it either. The only people who wanted it were the labor unions. And since the Democrats effectively work for the unions because of all the money they donate to them, the party is scheming to find a way to ram this through no matter how unpopular it is.

But as with everything else bad happening in California, why should the rest of us have any sympathy for the state’s residents if they don’t like what’s being done here? The officials trying to pull the wool over their eyes and jack up their food prices are the same gang of clowns that the Golden State’s voters keep sending back to office over and over again. They’re the ones who defunded the police and created the homelessness crisis and subsequent crime wave that’s taking place. They’re the ones who are allowing open-air drug markets to thrive. These are the people that you put into power and then failed to hold accountable by removing them. You’re getting what you asked for, so you don’t deserve to have the federal government bailing you out now with the rest of us paying for it.