I filled out my ballot and mailed it in. Yo voté, as my sticker says. It felt very low-stakes given the other races around the country. As I said in a previous entry, I'm not optimistic about the Democrats' chances. The polls have all the key races super close. I have intentionally not been following them intently, but I heard somebody on a podcast say we are a normal polling error in one direction away from a huge red wave and a normal polling error in the other direction away from a successful blue defense. Given the polls have hugely underestimated Republicans in almost every high-profile election over the past six years, I think my pessimism is warranted.
I remember when I formed my first political opinions, back in the late '90s, I thought the biggest problem with our system is that the two political parties were too alike and too corporate. As Noam Chomsky once put it, "In the US, there is basically one party - the business party." Man, what I wouldn't give to go back to those days -- back to when almost every politician governed somewhere between Bill Clinton and John McCain, and when an Exxon-Mobil executive was the epitome of evil, not a relative beacon of probity and rectitude. But to quote another great thinker, "the thing about the old days: they the old days."
One thing about DC elections is that a bunch of major races were already effectively decided in the primary election. Muriel Bowser is going to be mayor; Phil Mendelson is going to be council chair; the candidate for attorney general is running unopposed. Another thing is that there just doesn't seem to be that much difference between most the candidates running for other seats. I read through the profiles of all the at-large candidates for city council, and I found it super hard to draw big distinctions between their positions -- like on crime they didn't all say the exact same thing, but nobody wanted to defund the police and nobody wanted to implement stop and frisk either. I ended up picking two people, not at random, but not exactly based on a whole lot.
The most interesting thing on the ballot is an initiative to end tipped wages. Currently, DC establishments can pay certain workers (like servers and bartenders) well below minimum wage with idea that these employees will make enough tips to cover the difference. If they don't, then their employer has to cover the difference for them, so workers at least make minimum wage, tipped or otherwise. The initiative would end this practice and compel employers to pay minimum wage pre-tips.
I went back and forth on this one. On the one hand, socially mandatory tipping is a very silly way to compensate people. It's not at all an extra reward for a job well done. It's probably more correlated to how conventionally attractive (and flirty) you are than how well you perform your job. It also can be a bit of a tax scam in that most people don't declare all (if any) of their tipped income.
But it's at least a tax scam that helps working class people.* Having friends that made the bulk of their salaries from tips, I saw first hand how important they are to workers. In fact, a lot servers and bartenders oppose the initiative because they (understandably) think people would tip less. What would probably happen is that an establishment, not wanting to raise its sticker prices, would add on a service charge, in effect a forced tip (some places already do this), and then patrons wouldn't tip beyond that. The service charge would not go directly into the server's/bartender's pocket like it does now. So, if you're somebody who rakes it in from tips, this is a terrible law for you.
*I also wonder if everything being cashless is making it more difficult for tipped workers to not declare all their tips.
On the flip side, if you don't make that much above minimum wage from tips, then you probably want the stability of a steady wage. So, lots of strands -- some winners, some losers like with any bill. I see both sides, but I voted no, meaning I voted to uphold the status quo. I don't think there is any way establishments can afford to do this without raising prices somewhat, and now is not the time to raise prices. Also, I think customers prefer the "freedom" of choosing to tip or not over the service charge, which just feels like a straight-up price increase (especially if the service isn't great). DC establishments are still hurting from the Covid shutdown -- people got used to staying home, and giving them more reason to do so, just doesn't seem smart to me right now.
I also think, instead of eliminating tipping, this bill will just make it more confusing. Do you tip on top of the service charge? And what if you just get a single drink, is there going to be a service charge on that, and if there isn't, will you still be expected to tip like before?
We probably will find out. A similar bill passed a few years ago (2018, I believe), but the DC city council nixed it. They said they won't do that this time. But it only passed with 55%, and, as we've established already, things change. So, we shall see.
Until next time...
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