Local
Referendum to end D.C. tipped wage system delayed by lawsuit
Move reignites controversy for city’s service workers
A D.C. bartender filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Referendum 8.
A proposed voter referendum to overturn the D.C. City Council’s decision to repeal Initiative 77 that voters approved in June to end the city’s tipped wage system was placed on hold Monday when a D.C. bartender filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the referendum.
The lawsuit reignited the heated controversy from earlier this year that pitted the majority of the city’s tipped workers at bars and restaurants against a New York-based labor group that organized Initiative 77. The group ROC United said the initiative was needed because the tipped wage system resulted in lower wages for tipped workers and promoted sexual harassment against female tipped workers.
The tipped workers who opposed the initiative argued that the current system, in which they receive a lower wage from their employer but make overall substantially higher earnings through tips, works well for them and would be jeopardized if the tipped wage system were eliminated.
The bartender who filed the lawsuit on Monday, Valerie Graham, states in the lawsuit that the referendum’s summary statement, which had been approved by the D.C. Board of Elections on Nov. 9, includes what she says was the same misleading wording as that of Initiative 77.
The lawsuit was written by the law firm that represents the leading opponents of Initiative 77, of which Graham says she is a part. Among other things it says the proposed referendum’s summary statement would mislead voters by claiming Initiative 77 “gradually increases the minimum wage for tipped employees from the current wage ($3.89/hour), to the same minimum wage as non-tipped employees by 2026.”
The lawsuit points out that tipped workers already receive the equivalent of the full minimum wage that non-tipped workers receive because under existing D.C. law employers of tipped workers are required to pay the difference if their employees’ tips fall short of the full minimum wage.
Supporters of what the Board of Elections has named Referendum 8 denounced the lawsuit as yet another ploy to deny the will of the city’s voters who approved Initiative 77 by a 56 percent margin.
They note that the timing of the lawsuit places a temporary hold on the Board of Election’s release of petitions that supporters must circulate to collect approximately 25,000 signatures needed to place the referendum on the ballot.
Under the city’s election law signatures for a referendum seeking to overturn a law passed by the City Council must be obtained between the time the bill calling for the law is passed and the time it becomes law. The election board has interpreted that to be the 30 “legislative” days that Congress takes to review all laws passed by the city.
Congress is expected to complete its review of the Council’s bill to repeal Initiative 77 by Dec. 13. Thus, if supporters of Referendum 8 are unable to complete the signature gathering process by that date, the referendum would be killed.
The restaurant industry filed its lawsuit “at the eleventh hour,” a spokesperson for Referendum 8 said in a statement. “It’s their latest effort to thwart the democratic process. We will fight this delaying tactic in court, and we will prevail in the end,” said the spokesperson, Rev. Graylan Hagler, pastor of D.C.’s Plymouth United Church of Christ.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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