Michigan Supreme Court Reinstates Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Laws

The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that the state Legislature’s 2018 actions to adopt and then amend two ballot initiatives were unconstitutional, reinstating the original measures to boost the state’s minimum wage and establish paid sick leave while giving employers a phase-in period to adjust to the new requirements. In a 4–3 split decision issued on July 31, the high court determined that the so-called “adopt-and-amend” strategy used by the Michigan Legislature violated the state constitution. “By attempting to both reject an initiative and sidestep the people, adopt-and-amend impermissibly ‘thwart[s]’ the power that the people reserved for themselves,” reads the majority opinion. “As we have held, the people’s reserved power under Article 2, § 9 must ‘be saved if possible’ from ‘evasion or parry by the legislature.'”...