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# Anti-living wage group raises more than $500K
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/anti-living-wage-group-raises-more-than-500k/
- Published: 2002-10-26T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:49:04.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Campaign spending tops $100 for each Santa Monica voter*

It would take 28 full-time hotel employees an entire year to raise what foes of Santa Monica’s living wage have in four months.

And that’s before taxes. Living wage opponents raised $245,435.93 in the past two weeks — bringing their total for the year to $556,891.13 — to pay for direct mailers, paid canvassers and a phone bank operation based in Texas, according to campaign filing forms released Friday.

“It’s a corporate campaign,” said Danny Feingold, a spokesman for supporters of the living wage. “You have this confluence of corporate influences that are trying to kill the living wage. They don’t reflect the community’s interests.”

During the same two-week period, living wage supporters raised $107,498.73, bringing their annual total to $154, 264.74, according to the campaign disclosures. The group got a $25,000 donation from a Washington, D.C. political action committee called the Coalition to Defend America’s Working Families, which consists of unions, among other groups.

While the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union has been the most notable organization working on the campaign to enact the living wage, the organization accounted for less than 10 percent of the total amount raised this filing period.

However, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, or LAANE, donated almost 60 percent of the supporter’s funding. LAANE is a coalition of clergy, poverty activists and unions that helped enact Los Angeles’ living wage in 1996.

“Clearly the labor unions have the most at stake in these elections and they are spending at a level that reflects that,” said Seth Jacobsen, a spokesman for groups opposing the living wage.

> “Clearly the labor unions have the most at stake in these elections and they are spending at a level that reflects that.” — — SETH JACOBSEN Living wage opponent

The Santa Monica City Council approved an ordinance last year requiring businesses near the coast that make more than $5 million in annual revenue to pay their employees between $10.50 and $12.25 an hour, depending on whether health benefits are provided. Voters will decide on Nov. 5 whether to enact the living wage ordinance, which is known as Measure JJ.

Santa Monica’s proposed living wage law has drawn national attention because it’s the first of its kind to regulate salaries paid by businesses with no direct financial ties to a municipality.

Political pundits believe Santa Monica’s ordinance could act as a test case for more similar wage laws nationally, and each side of the issue is expected to raise and spend millions to convince voters of their views.

The result has been residents citywide being inundated with fliers and can-vassers from both sides of the issue. Combined, both sides have raised more than $700,000 this year, which translates into more than $100 per citizen to convince the approximately 60,000 registered voters of their cause.

No on JJ had almost $120,000 on hand and owed $15,000 in loans as of Oct. 24\. But Jacobsen said most of the money has already been spoken for and the group has little left to work with.

“I would say most of that has already been allocated to our grassroots walking program,” he said.

However, Jacobsen said the group was hoping to raise a significant amount before election day from national retail chains with local outlets.

“We’ve talked to Sears, Macy’s, GAP, and Toys-R-Us and they are all considering making large contributions to the campaign,” he said. “They very well may come in at the last minute.”

And for the first time in the campaign, numerous Santa Monica restaurants began donating large sums of money to help defeat the living wage. El Cholo donated $5,000; Sushi Roku gave $6,500 and Houston’s gave $10,000, among a half dozen other restaurants with smaller donations.

Many Santa Monica restaurant owners will display cards on each table this weekend that urge patrons to vote no on Measure JJ.

“It’s good that the restaurants came out because I believe everybody thinks this campaign is about the hotels versus the union,” Jacobsen said. “And it’s not. Restaurant participation is a good example of the concern that is out there about the damage this measure will do.”

On the other side, Yes on JJ — Santa Monica Coalition to Protect the Living Wage has $26,680.35 on hand and the group is in debt $60,976.62.

“We’re spending far more than we have, when it comes down to it,” Feingold said. “We’re doing the best we can against a campaign with a huge infusion of corporate money. We’re trying to make this a fair fight.”

To make up for the lower funding level, living wage supporters said they have depended on hundreds of volunteers who are coordinated by a group of about 25 paid full-time workers, the majority of whom are on leave from their jobs at hotels across Los Angeles.

“They are not the hired guns or the mercenaries the opponents of the living wage have brought in over the past two years,” Feingold said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 26, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/102602.pdf?ref=smdp.com)