Judge Rules Voters Must Decide on Minneapolis $15 Minimum Wage Question

A Hennepin County judge has ruled that a proposal to raise Minneapolis' minimum wage to $15 per hour should be decided by voters in the city on Election Day.

Minnesota Public Radio reported that Judge Susan Robiner issued her opinion Monday, which said that a proposed charter amendment to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 must be included on the November ballot.

Robiner's decision comes after organizers of an effort to get a $15-an-hour minimum wage added to the city's charter submitted a petition with thousands of signatures to the city council, asking lawmakers to add the proposal to this year's ballot.

City Attorney Susan Segal issued her legal opinion against it, and the city council followed suit. A majority of councilmembers voted against adding the minimum wage proposal to the ballot, saying it was not a proper subject for a charter amendment.

Robiner's decision today effectively overrules Segal's legal opinion and the city council's vote against the proposal. In her opinion, Robiner wrote that "There is no precedent holding that initiative and referendum is the only citizen power to legislate on matters of general welfare and that the power to amend a charter, with its constitutional right to citizen access, is something qualitatively different and lesser."

"To reject this proposal based on its content somehow being improper, which the City urges, amounts to passing judgment on the quality of the proposal which is not the province of the court."

Organizations supporter the $15 minimum wage proposal, including Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha, 15 Now Minnesota, and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, immediately celebrated the decision.

"Judge Robiner’s ruling is a step toward putting the $15/hr decision back into the hands of those workers most affected by poverty wages, in particular increasing opportunity for women and people of color who disproportionately fill low-wage jobs," said Tyler Vasseur, a Jimmy John’s worker and one of the plaintiffs in the case, in a statement.

Supporters will now have to convince a majority of Minneapolis voters that raising the city minimum wage to $15 per hour, an action only a handful of U.S. cities have taken, is a good idea.

In 2014, the Minnesota State Legislature voted to eventually raise the state minimum wage to $9.50 for large businesses and $7.75 for smaller ones.

It is not yet known if the city will appeal Monday's decision.

Image: Fibonacci Blue via Flickr /Creative Commons