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> What's the obvious loophole for the companies here. As with all things under California’s broken political system: the ballot initiative process. Get people

by SllX 2y ago

> What's the obvious loophole for the companies here. As with all things under California’s broken political system: the ballot initiative process. Get people to vote for a law that in effect repeals this one, and put repealing the repeal out of reach for the legislature.

slg 2y ago
For those that aren't familiar, this is exactly what happened with rideshare and delivery companies in California. AB5 was passed in 2019 that reclassified those workers as employees and so Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and others spent over $200m on getting Prop 22 passed in 2020 to give them an exception to AB5. Part of Prob 22 was a requirement that a seven-eighths majority in the legislature would be needed to amend it.
- Arrath 2y ago
  7/8's majority requirement?? These kind of supermajority threshold requirements should not be allowed, they're simply outrageous and blatantly obstructionist. Might was well write "this is immutable ha ha suck it"
  - SllX 2y ago
    If you can modify the California constitution by a simple ballot initiative, anything is possible within the bounds of Federal law and the US Constitution. AB5 was a bad law, but the solution was only a half-step to reversing it and yeah, the super majority requirement is essentially a bad solution to a legislature that would have had no qualms overturning a majority vote and talking a good game about how they’re right and voters are wrong. If our political environment didn’t feature short legislative term limits and ballot initiatives to begin with and was properly representative, it’s unlikely someone like the bill’s sponsor would have either been voted in in the first place or received enough support within the legislature to get AB5 passed. She also left the legislature and found herself a nice career working for the very interest groups that wanted to see AB5 passed in the first place.

by SllX 2y ago

slg 2y ago

For those that aren't familiar, this is exactly what happened with rideshare and delivery companies in California. AB5 was passed in 2019 that reclassified those workers as employees and so Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and others spent over $200m on getting Prop 22 passed in 2020 to give them an exception to AB5. Part of Prob 22 was a requirement that a seven-eighths majority in the legislature would be needed to amend it.

Arrath 2y ago
7/8's majority requirement?? These kind of supermajority threshold requirements should not be allowed, they're simply outrageous and blatantly obstructionist. Might was well write "this is immutable ha ha suck it"
- SllX 2y ago
  If you can modify the California constitution by a simple ballot initiative, anything is possible within the bounds of Federal law and the US Constitution. AB5 was a bad law, but the solution was only a half-step to reversing it and yeah, the super majority requirement is essentially a bad solution to a legislature that would have had no qualms overturning a majority vote and talking a good game about how they’re right and voters are wrong. If our political environment didn’t feature short legislative term limits and ballot initiatives to begin with and was properly representative, it’s unlikely someone like the bill’s sponsor would have either been voted in in the first place or received enough support within the legislature to get AB5 passed. She also left the legislature and found herself a nice career working for the very interest groups that wanted to see AB5 passed in the first place.