Raise the Wage Renton celebrates likely passage of Initiative Measure No. 23–02

A cit­i­zen-led ini­tia­tive to raise the min­i­mum wage in one of King Coun­ty’s largest cities looks head­ed for an easy vic­to­ry in ini­tial spe­cial elec­tion night returns tonight, delight­ing a broad and diverse coali­tion of activists and orga­niz­ers who have been work­ing for a long time to increase pay and secure bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions for work­ing fam­i­lies in the Pacif­ic Northwest.

So far, 57.50% of vot­ers in Ren­ton, Wash­ing­ton are say­ing yes to Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure No. 23–02, which qual­i­fied for the bal­lot back in Novem­ber and con­cerns estab­lish­ing labor stan­dards for the city’s employers.

Oppo­si­tion stands out at 42.50%. 5,891 bal­lots have been count­ed in favor of the mea­sure, and 4,354 bal­lots have been count­ed against it.

Turnout is cur­rent­ly 17.49%. Ren­ton has 58,745 reg­is­tered vot­ers and 10,277 of them have weighed in on Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure No. 23–02. The per­cent­age will rise, as more bal­lots remain to be count­ed. Spe­cial elec­tion turnout in Wash­ing­ton State often ranges from the low twen­ties to the mid-thirties.

“The pro­posed ordi­nance requires cov­ered employ­ers to pay a min­i­mum wage based on that estab­lished by the City of Tuk­wila, offer addi­tion­al hours to exist­ing part-time employ­ees before hir­ing new employ­ees or sub­con­tract­ed ser­vices, not retal­i­ate against employ­ees exer­cis­ing rights cre­at­ed by the ordi­nance, and com­ply with admin­is­tra­tive require­ments,” the ini­tia­tive’s bal­lot title says. “The pro­posed ordi­nance cre­ates reme­dies and penal­ties for vio­la­tions. If enact­ed, the ordi­nance could not be repealed with­out vot­er approval.”

“This mea­sure would adopt an ordi­nance that requires cov­ered employ­ers to (1) pay a min­i­mum wage for all hours worked with­in Ren­ton, and (2) dis­trib­ute addi­tion­al hours to its part-time work­ers pri­or to hir­ing new employ­ees, con­trac­tors, or tem­po­rary work­ers if its exist­ing part-time work­ers have the skills and expe­ri­ence to per­form the work,” its offi­cial explana­to­ry state­ment reads.

“Cov­ered employ­ers include those who (1) employ at least 15 employ­ees world­wide, or (2) have annu­al gross rev­enue over $2 mil­lion. The min­i­mum wage starts in July 2024 at $20.29 for large employ­ers and $18.29 for small­er cov­ered employ­ers. The low­er wage would be phased to equal that of larg­er employ­ers in two years, and the wage would be adjust­ed for infla­tion annually.”

“Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure 23–02 will bring Renton’s min­i­mum wage on par­i­ty with our South King Coun­ty Neigh­bors,” the Yes cam­paign’s web­site explains.

“In 2015, the city of SeaT­ac land­ed a his­toric win as it became the first city in the Unit­ed States to adopt a $15 min­i­mum wage law. That same year, Seat­tle fol­lowed suit and enact­ed its own min­i­mum wage increase.”

“In 2022, the city of Tuk­wila passed a min­i­mum wage ordi­nance man­dat­ing a $19 min­i­mum wage, receiv­ing wide­spread sup­port with over 80% of the vote. And just this year, King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­bers are propos­ing a near-iden­ti­cal $19 min­i­mum wage ordi­nance for all of Unin­cor­po­rat­ed King County.”

An oppo­si­tion cam­paign, fund­ed by the Wash­ing­ton Hos­pi­tal­i­ty Asso­ci­a­tion PAC, Ren­ton Cham­ber of Com­merce, Ever­green Mar­ket (North Amer­i­ca), Inc., Seat­tle Hos­pi­tal­i­ty for Progress PAC, Wash­ing­ton Food Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion PAC, urged a no vote, argu­ing it would “make things worse by increas­ing costs for everyone.”

“House­hold incomes have already increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly in Ren­ton, while the cost of liv­ing has sky­rock­et­ed,” the No cam­paign’s web­site says. “This pro­pos­al will only widen the gap by caus­ing the costs of gro­ceries, restau­rant meals, child­care, and oth­er goods and ser­vices to increase even more for everyone.”

Oppo­nents also argued that small busi­ness­es would be neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed, con­tend­ing: “Small busi­ness­es are still recov­er­ing from the pan­dem­ic and are strug­gling with infla­tion. A 25% min­i­mum wage increase will lead to reduced hours for employ­ees and high­er prices for everyone.”

Ren­ton vot­ers did­n’t buy those arguments.

The No cam­paign reg­is­tered with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion on Decem­ber 11th, 2023, and pro­ceed­ed to quick­ly reel in tens of thou­sands of dol­lars in con­tri­bu­tions from a hand­ful of donors, pri­mar­i­ly the afore­men­tioned fun­ders. (The list of con­tri­bu­tions is a mere sev­en­teen entries.) The cam­paign has spent $156,310.63 oppos­ing the ini­tia­tive in the past two months, pri­mar­i­ly on dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing, direct mail, and mass tex­ting. And it’s deeply in the red: In its last fil­ing with the PDC, the cam­paign report­ed debts of $90,067.27.

Raise the Wage Ren­ton has report­ed receipts of $104,239.26 and expen­di­tures of $94,012.69 to date. It has no debt. It had received one hun­dred and eighty-four con­tri­bu­tions as of Elec­tion Day. Its top expens­es have been for post­cards, staff time, legal ser­vices, and sig­na­ture gath­er­ing, to place the mea­sure on the ballot.

This evening, the coali­tion’s vol­un­teers and top sup­port­ers gath­ered at Delancey’s on 3rd in Ren­ton to cel­e­brate their work and await the elec­tion results, which land­ed short­ly after 8 PM. Ren­ton City Coun­cilmem­ber Car­men Rivera was the final speak­er ahead of the 8 PM dead­line to return bal­lots, stress­ing that win or lose, the cam­paign had worked hard and brought peo­ple togeth­er for a bet­ter future, and express­ing opti­mism that the cam­paign would be ahead.

A few min­utes lat­er, as the crowd await­ed the first drop, there was a loud yell of excite­ment, sig­nal­ing that the first results had land­ed and the news was good — very good. Sup­port­ers cheered, clapped, and hugged upon hear­ing that the cam­paign was up big. Rivera and E. Bai­ley Medi­lo offered jubi­lant remarks cel­e­brat­ing the cam­paign’s vic­to­ry, rec­og­niz­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of Amer­i­ca Ren­ton Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, Tran­sit Rid­ers Union, and oth­er groups that pro­vid­ed peo­ple and resources to sup­port the effort.

NPI took a posi­tion urg­ing a “yes” vote on Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure 23–02. Increas­ing the min­i­mum wage is a pol­i­cy direc­tion that we have sup­port­ed since our ear­li­est years as an orga­ni­za­tion, and we’re pleased to see Ren­ton vot­ers say­ing yes.

Medi­lo told NPI after the results land­ed that youth activism was cru­cial to the suc­cess of the cam­paign. From its incep­tion, high school stu­dents infused Raise the Wage Ren­ton with ener­gy and momen­tum, team­ing with elders to cre­ate an inter­gen­er­a­tional cam­paign focused on lift­ing up work­ing people.

King Coun­ty Elec­tions will con­tin­ue tab­u­lat­ing bal­lots for anoth­er two weeks, but Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure No. 23–02’s lead looks pret­ty safe. And, in fact, cam­paign orga­niz­ers expect it to grow as more bal­lots are count­ed. They fig­ured if they were up by any amount on Elec­tion Night, they were on a win­ning trajectory.

The cam­paign hopes that its vic­to­ry tonight will help spur the nine-mem­ber Met­ro­pol­i­tan King Coun­ty Coun­cil to pass a sim­i­lar ordi­nance rais­ing the min­i­mum wage in the unin­cor­po­rat­ed areas of Wash­ing­ton State’s largest jurisdiction.