Living wage backers say money corrupts elections
Supporters of Santa Monica’s defeated living wage ordinance have called a hearing with high ranking officials to expose what they describe as their opponents intentionally misleading voters in the November election.
More than 17 living wage supporters will testify Saturday before a panel convened by Santa Monicans for Responsible Tourism, or SMART, which ran the campaign for the living wage.
The hearing will be held at the Santa Monica Alternative School House, located at 2525 Fifth St. It will consist of statewide elected officials and election experts who will consider SMART’s allegations. The panel will make recommendations about how the state and city can make elections more equitable.
5F2,“We felt that... practices in the campaign to defeat the living wage really skirted legality and ethics,” said Vivian Rothstein, executive director of SMART. “It demands a public airing and review of these practices.”
The living wage ordinance, which was passed by the Santa Monica City Council, would have forced businesses in the coastal zone making more than $5 million annually to pay their workers $10.50 an hour with benefits and $12.50 an hour without.
Luxury beach hotels, restaurants and other businesses formed a coalition to defeat the living wage ordinance. They appealed the ordinance to a general election which was narrowly defeated. In three years, the group spent more than $2 million to convince voters to shoot down the ordinance, according to SMART officials.
Living wage opponents said the hearing is nothing more than “sour grapes” and a continued backlash by the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees union for losing the Nov. 5, 2002 election.
“It’s over. Let’s be constructive. Let’s stop being negative,” said Seth Jacobson, spokesman for a group opposed to the living wage ordinance. “We have been willing to talk and we have been open to talking since the election. We hope together we can develop a real living wage law that can benefit both employees and employers.”
Rothstein said opponents of the defeated ordinance have made no offer to meet. She said the hearing won’t debate the merits of the living wage ordinance, but rather focus on the campaign’s tactics and elections in general.
Witnesses at the hearing include Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante; State Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica); Paul Ryan, Center for Governmental Studies; Roy Ulrich, Common Cause; Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board President Maria Leon-Vazquez, and Santa Monica Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown.
The panel will include Cruz Reynoso, former California Supreme Court Justice; Dan Tokaji, board chair of California Common Cause; Xandra Kayden, a UCLA public policy professor; Erwin Chermerinsky, USC law professor; and Bishop Gabino Zavala, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Opponents of the living wage ordinance were invited to participate in the hearing, but no one from the group accepted the invitation, Rothstein said.
But opponents of the living wage law don’t believe they had to defend their campaign, according to Jacobson.
“There were no lies in any of the material we did,” Jacobson said. “We ran a straight-up ethical campaign. We sent out pieces in the mail, and they sent out pieces in the mail. Everybody had an opinion in their pieces, but we never sent anything that was factually inaccurate.”
Rothstein said she couldn’t disagree more. She said the campaign to kill the living wage ordinance is symbolic of everything that’s wrong with politics.
“If we’re not careful we’re not going to have a democracy anymore,” she said. “It’ll just be a big money system.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 21, 2003. Read the original PDF.