Mayor Bowser & D.C. Council Must Respect the Will of D.C. Voters by Rejecting Repeal of Initiative 82

Yannet Lathrop

Blog July 11, 2025

An executive and legislature are threatening to override the will of voters and slash worker protections. Yes, we’re talking about Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council.

Shockingly, the Democratic mayor and council are proposing to slash wages and weaken the democratic process. Mayor Bowser’s proposed FY2026 budget includes a repeal of Initiative 82, a ballot measure overwhelmingly approved by 74 percent of D.C. voters in 2022, that slowly phases out the lower “subminimum” wage for tipped workers by 2027. If the repeal is approved, the tipped wage will drop from its current rate of $10 down to $5.95—a 40.5 percent cut.

If the repeal is approved, the tipped wage will drop from $10 down to $5.95.

Repealing Initiative 82 would harm an estimated 6,800 servers and bartenders,[1] most of whom do not work in fine dining establishments raking in big money (as opponents claim), but in casual restaurants where menu prices are more affordable and tips are correspondingly lower. An additional 10,700 workers[2] working in other tipped occupations such as manicurists, hotel maids, and bellhops, would also be hurt.

This is not the first time the D.C. Council and Mayor Bowser have sought to overturn a voter-approved phase-out of the subminimum tipped wage. In 2018, Initiative 77, which would have phased out the subminimum tipped wage by 2026, was passed by a majority of District voters and almost immediately repealed by the council and mayor.

Nullifying a voter-approved wage increase once was shameful. To do so again would be reprehensible.

The D.C. government is not just thumbing its nose at voters. At the behest of corporate industry—which has been clamoring for an overturn of Initiative 82 since its passage—it is also repealing what is in fact an economically sound policy. Seven states (Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) already have “one fair wage” policies that guarantee tipped workers the full minimum wage as their cash wage with tips on top. Research shows that in one fair wage states, restaurant sales and jobs have been growing at the same rate or faster than in states with a subminimum tipped wage. The number of full-service establishments is also higher in one fair wage states. And tips in those states have not fallen. In fact, they are 21 percent higher than in states with a deplorable subminimum tipped wage of $2.13.

Tipped workers in the leisure and hospitality sector are largely women and people of color. They frequently experience wage theft, and their earnings fluctuate widely depending on the season, the shift they are given, and the generosity of customers. As a result, tipped workers experience poverty at double the rate than other workers. Tipping culture and tipped workers’ reliance on gratuities for the bulk of their earnings also leaves them vulnerable to sexual and other types of harassment from customers and even from bosses and coworkers.

A repeal would only exacerbate the precarity of a largely female and racially diverse workforce. At a time when wages, the cost of living, and the economy are a main priority of voters, a wage cut would be a blunder.

Repealing Initiative 82 would harm an estimated 6,800 servers and bartenders, most of whom do not work in fine dining establishments raking in big money, but in casual restaurants where menu prices are more affordable and tips are correspondingly lower.

Wage policies are popular with voters of all political leanings, as the past decade of successful minimum wage ballot initiatives and legislation has shown. Most recently, in November 2024 voters in the red states of Missouri and Alaska approved significant minimum wage increases, and voters in Arizona resoundingly rejected a proposal to slash the state’s tipped wage. In the District of Columbia, both ballot initiatives to phase out the subminimum tipped were approved by decisive margins.

Not surprisingly, a growing trend of corporate politicians—Republican and Democratic—are shamefully overturning the will of voters on economic policy, essentially doing the bidding of powerful business interests, which have been fighting progress on minimum wage for decades.

Unfortunately, examples of corporate lawmakers repealing, weakening, or attempting to repeal or weaken voter-approved policies abound, from Arizona’s attempt to slash the state’s tipped wage; to Michigan repealing a voter-backed elimination of the tipped wage; to Missouri’s repeal of a paid sick leave and the elimination of the cost-of-living provision in the states’ minimum wage law; to Nebraska’s gutting of paid sick leave and its ongoing attacks on minimum wage policy.

Mayor Bowser and the D.C. Council should not join this shameful list of corporate lawmakers nullifying voter-approved policies. NELP urges the mayor and council to respect the will of D.C. voters and fully implement Initiative 82 without delay.