(WXYZ) — The Michigan Court of Appeals has overturned a ruling from a lower court judge that would have raised the minimum wage in Michigan more than what took effect in the start of the year.
The appeals court voted 3-0 ruling the state legislature was constitutional in what's known as the adopt and amend rule in Michigan which allows the legislature to take up citizen-led petitions, adopt them, and then pass them before they ever get to a ballot.
The legal battle started in 2018 from One Fair Wage, which sought to allow voters to decide on raising Michigan's minimum wage to $13.03 an hour and tipped worker wages to $11.73 per hour in 2023. Another petition dealt with sick leave.
They had enough signatures to go to the ballot, but the Republican-led Michigan legislature instead adopted both bills, and then amended them later, increasing the minimum wage to $12.05 per hour by 2030.
A Court of Claims judge ruled that the adopt and amend policy was unconstitutional, but the Court of Appeals judges ruled that it was legal.
However, just because it's legal, Judge Michael Kelly said it wasn't right.
"If the individuals responsible for this maneuver ever wonder why public opinion polls cast politicians low when it comes to the virtue of trust, they need to look no further than what they did here," Kelly wrote in his opinion. "It is a direct assault on one of the rights of our founding fathers and the drafters of our state constitution held dear: the right of citizens to petition their government."
Because of the ruling, the minimum wage in Michigan will stay at $10.10 per hour, an increase that just took effect in 2023, and at $3.84 per hour for tipped workers. That's different than the proposal of $13.03 an hour and $11.73 per hour, respectively.
It's likely that the ruling will be appealed o the Michigan Supreme Court.
"There are hundreds of thousands of workers in this state who deserved a minimum wage increase back in 2018 when the Legislature did this and have been denied hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Mark Brewer, an attorney with Goodman Acker.
7 Action News spoke with Brewer in the afternoon.
"The minimum wage is barely $10 an hour. That's completely inadequate. Nobody can live on $10 an hour, particularly if they're trying to raise a family," he said.
Brewer said he's concerned about a bad precedent being set.
"If the courts let the legislature get away with this, every time a proposal comes to the state government the legislature can simply adopt it, keep it off the state ballot and take it apart shortly thereafter," he explained.
