They can run but they can’t hide. (WMP&I)

Our presidential endorsement may not have surprised anyone, but our endorsements have become spare. We used to do many more, but we determined that our limited resources would be better spent on reporting than making recommendations in every race. We are not silent, but we are selective in when to speak up.

For this reason, we are declining to opine on questions 2, 3 and 4 while registering our support for Question 1 and opposition for Question 5.

We try not to toss around recommendations without a firm argument behind our position. That requires time and investigation and for those three questions. However, we would add that of the questions we have declined to endorse or oppose, none would usher in calamity.

Question 1

Question 1 seeks is an amendment to the law that lays out whom the Auditor can audit. It would add the legislature to the list. Auditing the legislature had been a campaign promise of State Auditor Diana DiZoglio. However, the legislature laughed off her request for documents. The Attorney General refused to bring the matter to court, asserting that the law did not encompass the House and Senate.

To audit or not to audit. That is the question.. (via Twitter/@DianaDizoglio)

Undeterred, DiZoglio brought the matter to the people. She has characterized her goal as simply returning to an earlier time when the State Auditor did review the legislature’s books (House and Senate leadership dispute this). The auditor has traveled the state emphasizing the transparency and clarity a review would provide.

There is a great deal of doubt about how far this could go in practice. The legislature could gamble that the courts will side with its claim that a probe from the Auditor impermissibly intrudes on the legislative branch. At its more extreme, the argument is that the Auditor will have undue leverage over the legislature.

Critics also say DiZoglio has an axe to grind dating to her time in the Great and General Court. Even if we were to credit the claim that this pure vendetta, our response is simple: who cares?

Whatever legislative victories of the past few years—and they do exist—time has caked dysfunction and inertia onto Beacon Hill. Even before the ignominious end to the formal session this year, when countless key bills died, the House and Senate were breaking records for poor legislative production. Budgets are routinely late. This is partly because it is a must-pass bill and thus more and more complicated policy is tacked on each year.

Part of the problem is there is no obvious electoral solution. We would be hard-pressed to blame any rep and senator from the 413 for the legislature’s sclerotic state. This is a collective action problem that requires a dig aimed at the legislature as a collective.

However, when Beacon Hill stalls out with its work half-finished or when it keeps putting off a final budget, only two things set it straight. Gentle(ish) nudges from the governor or a thorough roasting from The Boston Globe. This is not sustainable. That they have caught up somewhat since the session ended on July 1 is insufficient

In our view, however this ballot question works out in practice is less important than the popular disapproval a yes vote will register.

We know embarrassment works. With some regularity, when The Globe flames Beacon Hill, results tend to follow. However, our legislature should not need to be served well-done to do its job.

We do not come to this conclusion lightly. This problem has been building for years, predating even current leadership to a  degree. Still, the legislature, as an institution, has only itself to blame for letting things reach a point that we agree Question 1 should pass.

Question 5

This questions would abolish the tipped wage, or more accurately the tip credit, restaurants are allowed to pay employees who receive tips. Presently, servers and bartenders may be paid no less than $6.75 per hour, provided the tips they claim bring them up to the full Massachusetts minimum wage of $15. This question would provide the full, regular minimum wage to these employees.

However, Question 5 has a defect that makes the question unacceptable, earning it our call for rejection. It would abolish Massachusetts’s fairly strong protections for tips and allow restaurants to redistribute server and bartenders’ tips to any other employees. This would harm service employees in the long run and breed resentment within the already volatile workplaces that are restaurants.

Your editor-in-chief is a veteran of the service industry. The Massachusetts Restaurant Association (MRA) has long been a villain in this blog’s eyes. It wrongly fought any increase in the tipped minimum for years. That obstinance left the tipped minimum in Massachusetts frozen at $2.63 from 1998 to 2015.

The MRA opposition to raising the tipped wage is obvious and self-interested. However cynically, the MRA has also targeted the tip redistribution component of the law. They are right to do so.

While the situation varies from restaurant to restaurant, most servers earn well above $15 an hour. For that reason, we do not believe abolish the tipped wage is necessary. However, we would not urge a no vote if this were a clean wage increase. Letting employers seize tips to distribute to other employees, many of whom already earn more than minimum wage, risks making servers and bartenders poorer.

Federal law bars full tip redistribution if the tipped employee is earning below the local minimum wage. Massachusetts goes much further. It explicitly prohibits distribution of tips to any employee who does not provide service to the guest.

A fairer question would have raised the tipped wage and left Massachusetts strong tip law survive. Several states out west have abolished the tipped wage, but kept tips in servers and bartenders’ pockets. Notably, Washington, D.C.’s tipped wage abolition includes this tip distribution provision. It was the handiwork of Question 5’s supporters, One Fair Wage.

One Fair Wage has noble roots. However, it is clear its agenda is more ideological than practical. When challenged about why its question would repeal Massachusetts’s strong tip law, it offered pablum about team-building. Solidarity will not grow when servers, who perform significant emotional work to perform their duties, are forced to hand over the lion’s share of their tips.

Behind One Fair Wage’s language appears to be excising tipping from American society as much as possible. They will cite, not altogether inaccurately, the racist origins of tipping. However, this question will not accomplish that. Shielding workers from totally relying on tips is good, but trying to Europeanize dining out entirely will just hurt workers. The warm fuzzy feeling of “solidarity” will not make up for it.

While cited primarily in the context of eliminating the tipped credit, supporters of Question 5 will point to the sexual harassment servers face and wage theft from employers. Only a fool would believe that both of these would vanish or meaningfully dissipate with Question 5’s passage.

Abolishing Massachusetts’s strong tip law will open the door to chicanery on the part of restaurateurs. It will not, however, keep lecherous guests off servers. There is a reason the Massachusetts AFL-CIO has kept away from this poorly designed question. They want workers to have more money. Organized labor wants the tip credit abolished, but wants workers to keep their tips without management’s meddling.

It is this blog’s belief that in the next 10 to 20 years, a Democratic trifecta in Washington will abolish the tip credit or at least fix it to the minimum wage as it was from 1966 to 1996. It may serve the MRA’s interest to prepare for that eventuality now. The legislature, when it reconvenes in January, should consider further increases and at least bring the server wage up to 50% of the full minimum.

Whatever the sordid history of tips, they do support families today and the laws that protect them from exploitation. This ballot question does not do that. We urge voters to vote no and reject it.