GOP Sees Potential Winning Issue With AB5 as Election Looms

LOS ANGELES—Republicans in California are eyeing the controversial AB5 “gig worker” law, which requires that companies that now rely on freelance workers to hire those workers as employees, as a potential winning issue in the Democratically controlled state. And with both candidates at the top of the Democratic ticket — Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris — supporting AB5, the law could play a role in the presidential race as well. The law, which took effect in January of this year, is intended to prevent companies from saving a buck by misclassifying workers who may put in long hours for low wages as “independent contractors” when they should be treated as employees — complete with a minimum wage, payroll taxes, health benefits, paid time off and other benefits. While the law was largely intended to force rideshare companies such as Uber and Lyft to treat their drivers as employees, it reached well beyond that industry, subjecting independent contractors in dozens of professions to a new, strict test to determine whether they should be allowed to work on an “independent” basis. As a result, some companies have simply refused to hire freelance workers at all.  The bill was authored and supported almost exclusively by Democrats — but it may have already cost one Congressional seat that was held by a Democrat. In May, Republican former Navy pilot Mike Garcia defeated Democratic state assemblymember Christy Smith in a special election in the 25th Congressional district.  The district centered in traditionally Republican Simi Valley had been “flipped” to the Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections by Katie Hill. But Hill resigned her seat after a leak of sexually explicit photos, and allegations that she engaged in a sexual relationship with a staffer. While Smith was initially expected to hold the seat for Democrats in a district that voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Garcia’s campaign made an issue of Smith’s support for AB5, even claiming, inaccurately, that she had “co-authored” the bill. In the 48th district, based in Orange County, Republican County Supervisor Michelle Steel has made AB5 a key to her campaign against the Democratic incumbent Harley Rouda, calling for the law’s repeal. As Garcia did with Hill, Steel has sought to tie Rouda to the bill, even referring to the law in campaign ads as “Rouda’s AB5.” But the law was passed by the California legislature, not by the United States Congress where Rouda serves. On a national level, prominent Democrats have also strongly supported AB5. While Biden and Harris initially took no position on the law, but in August of last year both announced their support for the bill. Harris even went so far as to state that “all Democrats need to stand up” and declare their support for AB5.  Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren injected herself into California politics last year when she published an August op-ed in the Sacramento Bee, declaring that the AB5 — which was then under debate in the legislature — would “stop shameful exploitation” of gig workers.  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced U.S. Senate legislation that would essentially make AB5 a nationwide law. The Democratically controlled House passed a bill last year, H.R. 2474 that would also require many independent contractors to be reclassified as “employees.” Photo By Ilya Plekhanov / Wikimedia Commons