LINCOLN, NE – The Fairness Project this week released a statement denouncing an attempt by lawmakers to undermine Nebraska voters, and stood in support of the certified election results on a ballot measure related to wage increases.
According to the statement, though nearly 60 percent of voters supported a ballot measure to raise the minimum wage in Nebraska, state lawmakers are attempting to pass legislation to weaken the measure, denying raises to thousands of people.
The Fairness Project recounted how in the 2022 Midterm Elections, “Nebraska voters supported a ballot initiative to gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by January 2026.”
This measure would ensure the state’s minimum wage would “automatically adjust for cost of living increases beginning in 2027.”
Discussing the ballot on which Nebraskans voted in favor of the minimum wage increase, the statement notes Democratic State Senator Jane Raybould introduced a new bill, LB258, on that same ballot which would “severely weaken the state’s minimum wage law.”
This new bill, according to the Fairness Project, would “(carve) out a subminimum wage for workers under the age of 18 and (restrict) the cost of living increases already voted on and approved by an overwhelming majority of voters.”
Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, charged, “In 2022, voters decisively chose to give themselves a raise in the face of years of inaction on the part of state legislators and the federal government.”
“To chip away at this victory at a time when Nebraskans – and indeed working people across the country – are struggling with the costs of basic essentials is not only tone deaf, but harmful to people who are just barely making ends meet,” according to Hall.
Addressing the new bill, Hall claimed, “In addition to being undemocratic, it’s particularly cruel to target the wages of young workers who are just starting out in the workforce.”
Hall, speaking on the attempt to lower wages for underage workers, asserted that “workers under 18 contribute to our economy, help support their families, and work just as hard as their older counterparts, yet they are being singled out for wage cuts with no say in the decision.”
According to Hall in the statement, “lowering wages for those under 18 is nothing more than exploitation, preying upon their lack of political power.”
The Fairness Project insists the critical infrastructure and support provided by the Fairness Project to Nebraska-based grassroots organizations “worked on the ground to advance the minimum wage measure more than two years ago.”
The organization currently boasts “an unmatched number of victories on progressive ballot measure campaigns across the country, having won a total of 39 campaigns across 20 states since 2016.”
However, the Fairness Project maintains, “Raybould’s bill is not an outlier” for Hall and her organization, nor is it “purely about suppressing already decided increases to one state’s minimum wage.”
Rather, the press statement claims, it is part of a national trend of legislators introducing bills that undermine the ballot measure process in an attempt to subvert direct democracy.
In the statement, Hall said, “What we’re witnessing here is about the minimum wage, but it’s also about the will of the people…in statehouses across the country, legislators bristle at the idea of citizens initiating their own ballot measures to address the issues they care most about – often issues on which representatives and senators have failed to deliver for their constituents.”
Hall ends her statement by noting “that’s exactly why citizens far outside Nebraska should be watching what’s happening in Lincoln, and why LB258 needs to be stopped.”
