On Monday, the Arkansas General Assembly proved that our state motto still rings true.
Turns out, the will of the people isn't negotiable. If Arkansas voters say they want an $11 minimum wage across the state, despite all the arguments to the contrary, they should get an $11 minimum wage. This column tried to convince voters otherwise, but 68 percent of the voters in the last election had their say. The vote wasn't even close. It was 605,784 fer, 279,046 agin.
That didn't stop a few lawmakers from trying to tweak the law to make the minimum wage hike null under certain conditions. But that's not what the voters said they wanted in November.
The bills to undo voter will not only failed, but failed bigly. The sponsor says she'll not bother with the bill again this session.
H.L. Mencken once noted that democracy is the theory that the voters know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard. We're not sure a higher minimum wage is going to benefit the state--in fact, we suspicion it will hurt those on the lower end of the income brackets--but a higher minimum wage it shall be. Our hope is that it won't hurt the state's economy as much as it might.
But overruling the people might be even worse.
Editorial on 04/03/2019