Vote on Uber, Lyft rule may be in May
Austin City Council appears likely to leave the issue up to voters.
Save the date: May 7. Most of the 20 or so people who spoke to the Austin City Council on Thursday evening about the tangled issue of regulating transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft urged the council to call an election on a proposal that would strike down any fingerprinting requirement for such drivers.
The City Council has another option — simply adopt that proposed ordinance, which is supported by Uber and Lyft — but nothing the council members said Thursday or in the days before indicates they will take that option when it comes up for a vote Feb. 11.
“We probably are on the way to a May election,” said Council Member Don Zimmerman, one of just two council members who support the proposed ordinance that would come before voters. The other nine council members voted in December for the ordinance being challenged, which in time would require all drivers for ride-hailing companies to get fingerprinted for a criminal background check. Uber and Lyft
say if and when that happens, they would close up shop in Austin.
The alternative ordinance, the fruit of a threeweek petition drive by Ridesharing Works for Austin, specifically says fingerprinting wouldn’t be required.
Austin City Clerk Jannette Goodall validated that petition Tuesday, finding it had well over the required 19,965 signatures of registered Austin voters.
In the meantime, Mayor Steve Adler wants to put another alternative before the council.
Adler, who voted for the December ordinance with the fingerprinting requirement but has since distanced himself from it, plans to put his proposal on next week’s agenda, as well. The mayor, who has said he doesn’t want Uber and Lyft to leave, would remove the fingerprinting requirement in his proposed ordinance. But he would also propose that the city be allowed to charge ride-hailing companies an annual fee of up to 2 percent of gross revenue, the limit under state law.
The petition ordinance supported by Uber and Lyft caps the fee at 1 percent.
Adler would use some of that fee money to make payments to ride-hailing drivers who agree to be fingerprinted under a voluntary program. In Adler’s view, that would mean the May election would no longer be about fingerprinting mandates and a potential Uber and Lyft exit.
His proposal, which surfaced in conceptual form Tuesday, hasn’t generated much enthusiasm on the council. Adler said he doesn’t know if he can assemble a majority of the council to support his alternative.
All will come to a head Feb. 11. By city law, when a certified petition drive puts forward a proposed ordinance, such as the one backed by Uber and Lyft, the council has 10 days to vote to adopt it. If the council chooses not to, then the ordinance must be put before voters at the next uniform election date. That would be May 7.
A few people spoke in favor of the petition ordinance Thursday evening, but the majority opposed the petition and called for an election rather than council adoption of the proposed law. That included Brian Standard, who drives for both companies. He said that many of the 65,103 people who petition organizers said had signed the petition had little idea what they were putting their names on. He said he has discussed it with his passengers.
“When I inform them of what they signed, they say, ‘Well, I had no idea,’” Standard said. “Give it (the ordinance) to the people. Let them read it, and let them decide.”