Reply to Bowser repealing minimum wage increases. What

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There's always a huge helping of magical thinking in DC policymaking. Whether it's Initiative 82 or bike lanes or pot legalization or whatever, it's like the underpants gnomes are in charge of designing these policies. [/quote]

74% or DC voters are underpants gnomes? (Whatever the hell an underpants gnomes is, not that any of us really want to know.)

And god forbid DC voters might think that restaurants in DC could figure out how to operate the way that restaurants and almost every other business functions almost everywhere else in the world.

But, no, they throw a fit with all sorts of junk fees and nonsense charges just to piss all the customers off, childishly branding I-82 as responsible for their own crappy behavior, and then go crying to Mommy Bowser to get their way.

Well, it ain’t gonna work. There aren’t the votes for this on the Council. Not even Mendelsohn is going to vote for it. And you think that after this, DC voters are going to be even more eager to eat at your restaurants? Please.[/quote]

It wasn't 74 percent of DC voters. It was 74 percent of the people who voted in that election, or around 28 percent of the registered voters in DC. I know critical thinking isn't your strong suit, but please try.[/quote]

Shall we show out all of the results from that election or those you don’t like? Shall we also throw out I-83 because it similarly failed to attract votes from a majority of registered voters? There was nothing else on that ballot - other than uncontested candidates - that attracted such overwhelming support from those who voted in the election. But it is funny that you apparently think very highly of yourself for concocting an argument that is not only stupid but could be used to delegitimize almost any election result in the country.[/quote]

Special interest groups love ballot initiatives. It's a way for them to get changes in the law that elected leaders would never ever approve. They take some complicated issue and they turn it into a question of whether you love or hate puppies. They carpet bomb with advertisements saying that if you love puppies, then you support their dumb idea, even if it doesn't actually have anything to do with puppies. They always want to do it in an election where few people turn out so that their supporters represent a huge share of the electorate. 50 people show up to vote, they all say they love puppies and then it turns out that two years later, all the restaurants are closing because it turns out the ballot initiative didn't do what they promised. [/quote]

Let's review a few facts, shall we?

133,000 DC residents voted in favor of I-82. In the same election, Muriel Bowser won the same proportion of the vote running against an Independent, a Republican, and a Libertarian. Other than the mayor or the Chairperson, I-82 won more votes than anyone or anything else on the ballot - more than Anita Bonds or Kenyan McDuffie.

This was a hardly a novel issue.

I-77, which DC voters approved in 2018, concerned the same question. The issue had been discussed ad nauseum in the four years between that result and the I-82 vote. It's also an issue that personally affects everyone who would eat a meal at a DC establishment.

You can complain as much as you want about the wisdom of the majority of voters, but those who showed up to vote on I-82 in November 2022 were about as well-informed about anything they were asked to vote on at the municipal level.

Your issue doesn't thus seem to concern the results of I-82 as it does basic tenets of democracy.[/quote]

People are so well informed that even today, years later, they still have no idea whether they're supposed to still tip.

Ballot initiatives are a sleazy business. A bunch of lies foisted on informed voters by special interest groups. [/quote]

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