The Las Cruces City council voted 4-to-3 to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2017. But the new wage law won’t necessarily be enacted. Some say the council majority is subverting the democratic process to keep the minimum wage from increasing that quickly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ful0sGX5U0&feature=youtu.be
State legislators passed a bill to raise New Mexico’s minimum wage to $8.50 in 2013, a bill Governor Susana Martinez vetoed. And despite calls by President Obama to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 Congress has failed to act. For local group CAFÉ, Communities in Action and Faith that was a call to action.
Executive Director Sarah Nolan says they wanted to lead the charge to raise the minimum wage to provide relief to struggling residents in Las Cruces.
“Our job is to get them out of poverty “ she says.
The ballot initiative is a democratic process enshrined in the Las Cruces city charter to allow groups like CAFÉ or any registered city voter to play a role in public policy and ultimately have an ordinance considered by city council.
Putting together a ballot initiative is a long tedious process- for CAFÉ it took more than a year. -To draft the ordinance, get the language approved by the city and collect enough petition signatures. But once in front of the council it becomes a simple yes or no vote. A yes enacting it, a no to put it on the ballot
But neither of those things happened.
While the Council voted 4-to-3 to enact the ordinance, stopping it from going on the ballot the mayor and the councilors that voted for it said they were in fact against it. They went on to detail their plans and power to change the terms of the very ordinance their vote just brought into law.
Councilor Miguel Silva says the $10.10 law conflicts with an $8.50 minimum wage ordinance enacted earlier in the year.
"The public, at the least the people that signed the petition would like to see $10.10 in the future. Now it may not be as soon as CAFÉ wants within two or three years by 2017, it might be in 5 years. But I think this is something that the council needs to take serious and to discuss and to resolve" he says.
While the council majority may have found a way to have its cake and eat it too, the surprise move left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Las Crucens. Former state senator Steve Fischmann said in a Las Cruces Sun News column that the mayor, Silva, Greg Smith and Ceil Levatino were throwing democracy “under the bus” and “betrayed voters by pulling a questionable stunt to win the issue.”
But Silva told KRWG News that the council would have had to reconcile the two minimum wage laws regardless of a November vote by the public. He contends the council vote in favor of the $10.10 minimum wage law allows the city to save time and money.
City councilor Nathan Small disagrees he says the vote in favor of the $10.10 minimum wage should supersede the $8.50 law.
"There does not seem to need to be reconciliation between different ordinances. What is passed is the law of the land, what has passed most recently" he says.
CAFÉ Executive Director Sarah Nolan says what is best for the community ought to be determined by the community. She says the argument that the council must reconcile the two minimum wage laws is all about power.
“They wanted to keep power in city hall chambers and keep it out of the ballot and out of the hands of voters especially working class and low income voters ” she says.
Nolan says CAFÉ is consulting with an attorney to evaluate the validity of the councilors arguments. In his column, former state Senator Fischmann says the vote may have broken the law and there is no legal precedent to suggest that the now passed $10.10 ordinance shouldn’t trump prior minimum wage law
