The campaign to raise Michigan’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour is giving up its fight to get on the November ballot.
A state elections board last week said the proposal failed to get enough valid petition signatures to go to the state Legislature or the statewide ballot. The Raise Michigan coalition announced on Friday it will not appeal the ruling.
The group says a court battle to force the question on the ballot would be too costly without a good chance of winning.
Treasurer Frank Houston says the deck is stacked against the effort “when you have a court system that, I think we could say, at least isn’t expected to be friendly, and when we have the kind of special interests aligned against us willing to spend whatever it takes to keep us off the ballot.”
But Houston still calls the campaign a victory. State lawmakers earlier this year passed a bill boosting the minimum wage to $9.25 an hour by 2018 and tie it to inflation after that.
“Let’s all be very clear. There’s no way our Republican-controlled state Legislature and our Republican governor would have raised the minimum wage in Michigan without our efforts,” he said.
Houston says Raise Michigan is already discussing future petition drives. He says that could include a proposal requiring more businesses to give workers earned paid sick days.