Minimum Wage

Businessman foiled in attempt to block proposal from November ballot

Will Arkansas raise the minimum age from the current $6.25 to $8.50? It looks like voters will get to decide. This year, supporters of an increase in the state’s minimum wage started a campaign to gather signatures to get the measure on the November ballot.

The proposal would gradually raise the wage over the next three years.

Backers got the required signatures and turned them into the Secretary of State’s office, which certified the petition and allowed the proposal to go on the ballot.

That didn’t sit well with Jackson T. Stephens, a Little Rock businessman whose father is one of the founders of the investment banking and media firm Stephens Group.

The younger Stephens is chairman of the Club for Growth, which describes itself as “a national network of over 100,000 pro-growth, limited government Americans who share in the belief that prosperity and opportunity come from economic freedom.”

The organization advocates reducing income tax rates, abolishing inheritance taxes, instituting a flat tax, repeal of Obamacare, reduced government regulation and a balanced budget amendment.

Stephens decided to take on the minimum wage increase, filing a lawsuit arguing that backers missed the deadline to submit the petition. He also charged fraud, claiming a significant number of the signatures were invalid because of illegibility and improperly printed petitions.

The case reached the Arkansas Supreme Court, which ruled this week that Stephens’ lawsuit had no merit and the minimum wage proposal would stay on the ballot. The ruling was unanimous. “It is shameful that, according to our Supreme Court, fraud is not a consideration in this matter of public trust, and now the whole ballot initiative process is open to fraud. It is even more shocking that there wasn’t a single dissent, indicating that all seven justices embraced this decision and its long-term implications on future generations,” Stephens said in a prepared statement.

He also seems to think the right response is to recall the justices, saying in his statement that “a judicial-recall provision as an initiated act is the most appropriate response to this and other shocking judicial decisions Arkansans have been subjected to this year.” Sounds like a sore loser to us. Reasonable people can differ over whether raising the minimum wage is a good idea. But in our view, the final decision should rest with the voters. Let both sides make their case; let the people choose.

The court made the right call in this case.