Welcome to the Wednesday, December vii, Brew.

By: David Luchs

Here’due south what’south in shop for you lot as yous start your day:

Runoff to determine who will be Austin’s next mayor
Ii citizen initiatives certified to the state legislature in Maine
Campaign to repeal California fast nutrient wage and labor regulation law submits more one 1000000 signatures

Runoff to determine who will be Austin’s next mayor

With the U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia in the rear-view mirror, permit’s look at some other runoff set up for side by side week. Celia State of israel and Kirk Watson are running in the Dec. thirteen nonpartisan general runoff election for mayor of Austin, Texas. Israel and Watson, who take both served in the land legislature as Democrats, were the top ii vote-getters in the Nov. 8 full general election. Israel received 40% of the vote and Watson received 35% of the vote. To win, a candidate must receive more than l% of the vote.

Incumbent Stephen Adler did not run for re-ballot.

Israel has represented Commune 50 in the Texas House of Representatives since 2014, while Watson represented District 14 in the Texas Senate betwixt 2007 and 2020. Watson earlier served as mayor of Austin between 1997 and 2001.

According to
The Texas Tribune, “While both have acknowledged the magnitude of the crisis and accept diagnosed similar issues, they’re approaching it through different philosophies: Israel is looking to enact sweeping reforms to convalesce Austin’southward housing shortage and Watson is trying to residue the demand for more housing with neighborhood interests.”

State of israel says she would provide monetary assistance to renters while reducing parking requirements and increasing density to encourage development. Watson says he supports modifying the development review procedure to encourage new projects, temporarily halving fees related to development, and giving individual city council members authority to suggest housing plans for their districts.

Israel and Watson disagree on how to spend a $250 million housing bail voters canonical on November. 2, 2022. State of israel said the city should “partner with a nonprofit who’s going to piece of work to take our unhoused off the streets first and put them in a dignified place.” Watson said, “So 1 of my priorities would be to work with the private industry, the individual developers as they’re developing their projects, bring in that public money, so we would exist able to together be able to purchase downward those units.”

The winner of the 2022 election will serve a two-yr term instead of the typical iv. In 2021, Austin voters approved Proffer D, a measure that aligns mayoral elections with presidential ballot years. Following the 2024 ballot, the mayor will serve a four-year term.

Austin has a Democratic mayor. Equally of Dec 2022, 62 mayors in the largest 100 cities by population are affiliated with the Autonomous Political party, 25 are affiliated with the Republican Political party, four are independents, seven identify as nonpartisan or unaffiliated, i mayor’s affiliation is unknown, and one office is vacant.

The city of Austin utilizes a quango-manager system. In this class of municipal regime, an elected city quango—which includes the mayor and serves equally the urban center’due south primary legislative body—appoints a chief executive chosen a city manager to oversee day-to-day municipal operations and implement the quango’south policy and legislative initiatives.

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Two denizen initiatives certified to the state legislature in Maine

On Nov. thirty, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) confirmed that two citizen initiative campaigns—Protect Maine Elections and Our Ability—submitted plenty signatures for both initiatives to be certified to the land legislature. Both will have a chance of beingness approved by the state legislature or actualization on the Nov. 2023 ballot.

The Protect Maine Elections campaign submitted 67,550 valid signatures on November. 1, 2022. The initiative would prohibit election spending by foreign governments, including entities with partial foreign government ownership or control. The campaign said, “Our initiative stops strange governments from spending in Maine elections, imposes new public disclosure requirements on foreign entities that engage in consequence advertizing, and requires that media companies disclose illegal spending past foreign powers.”

The other campaign, Our Power Maine, submitted 69,735 valid signatures on Oct. 31, 2022. The initiative would create a municipal consumer-owned electric transmission and distribution utility called the Pino Tree Power Company, which would supercede Central Maine Ability and Versant. Our Power Maine stated, “The visitor’s purposes are to provide for its customer-owners in this Country reliable, affordable electric transmission and distribution services and to help the State encounter its climate, energy and connectivity goals in the most rapid and affordable manner possible.” The campaign opposing the initiative, the Maine Affordable Free energy Coalition, said that the initiative would event in college electric bills. The coalition said, “A scheme to seize Maine’s electric filigree by eminent domain would create a authorities-controlled utility — and we would all be on the hook for the cost.”

Both initiatives are indirect initiatives, the simply kind permitted in Maine. Unlike standard citizen initiatives, which are certified to the ballot after a campaign submits enough valid signatures, an indirect initiative goes to the state legislature starting time. If the legislature passes the initiative, it becomes law. The initiative only goes to the ballot if the legislature rejects the initiative or does non take action by the end of the session.

If the country legislature rejects or does not take activity on either submitted initiative, they will go to Maine voters at the election on Nov. vii, 2023.

There were no measures on the ballot in Maine this past November. The final indirect initiative to appear on the ballot was in 2021 when voters approved an initiative to prohibit the structure of electric manual lines in the Upper Kennebec Region.

Other initiative petitions in Maine are still circulating. The deadline to submit signatures to the secretary of land is January. 26, 2023.

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Campaign to repeal California fast food wage and labor regulation law submits more than 1 million signatures

On Dec. 5, Save Local Restaurants submitted more than 1 1000000 signatures to the California secretary of state to place a veto referendum on the 2024 election that would repeal Associates Pecker 257 (AB 257). AB 257 will create a fast food council authorized to increment the minimum wage of workers in the fast-food industry to $22 per hour in 2023 and ready working hours and weather condition for fast-food workers. The minimum wage in California is set to increase to $15.50 on Jan. ane, 2023.

The land Senate approved AB 257 by a vote of 21-12 with seven absent, and the state Associates approved information technology by a vote of 47-19 with 14 absent. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the bill into law Sept. 5.

Save Local Restaurants filed the referendum on Sept. half dozen and had until Dec. 5 to submit 623,212 valid signatures. Co-ordinate to the latest campaign finance filings submitted on Nov. 23, Salvage Local Restaurants reported over $13.7 one thousand thousand in contributions. The acme donors to the commission included Chipotle Mexican Grill ($ii million), In-N-Out Burgers ($two million), Starbucks ($2 million), Yum! Brands ($1 million), and Wing End ($500,000). The International Franchise Association, the National Eatery Association, and the U.Southward. Chamber of Commerce accept also endorsed the committee.

Salvage Local Restaurants said in a statement, “The FAST Act would have an enormous impact on Californians, and clearly voters want a say in whether it should stand up. The measure would establish an unelected council to control labor policy in the counter-service restaurant industry, cause food prices to increment by as much as xx% during a period of decades-high inflation, and harm thousands of small family-, minority-, and women-endemic businesses across the state.”

SEIU California Country Quango supports the police force. Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, said, “Ten years after 200 fast-food workers walked off the job in New York Urban center and galvanized an international motility of workers enervating $15/hr and marriage rights, the passage of AB 257 is the nigh significant accelerate in workers’ fight for fairness on the job in a generation. Workers from declension to coast are stepping into their power, and they’ll take their fight to any company in any industry. Information technology’s fourth dimension for corporations like McDonald’s, Amazon, Starbucks and Delta to come up to a national bargaining table to raise standards across their industries and ensure every worker is respected, protected and paid a living wage.”

In 1912, Californians voted on a statewide veto plebiscite for the start time. The most recent veto referendum was on the ballot in 2022, and voters decided to uphold the law. Californians have voted on 50 veto referendums, upholding laws 21 times (42%) and repealing laws 29 times (58%).

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