Proposal to boost Nevada’s minimum wage won’t appear on November ballot

CARSON CITY — An initiative to gradually raise Nevada's minimum wage to $13 per hour was withdrawn by backers who worried the issue would get lost on a crowded 2016 ballot amid the noise of a raucous presidential election.

"We are consciously withdrawing it as a matter of strategic necessity," Bob Fulkerson, executive director Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said Friday.

PLAN was a main advocate of the measure.

Fulkerson said Nevada's four congressional races, an open U.S. Senate seat, other ballot measures and the presidential election will dominate voters' attention. Supporters also faced the task of collecting about 55,000 signatures by June 21 to qualify the proposed constitutional amendment for November's general election ballot.

"We want to focus on building up our base as progressive leaders to participate in those campaigns and everything else that's happening on the ballot," he said. "It would have been a really noisy year to have a conversation about minimum wage and economic inequality with the base."

Nevada's minimum wage is $8.25 an hour, or $7.25 if the employer offers health insurance.

The initiative sought to abolish the two-tiered rate system and increase the minimum wage to $9.25 in late 2018. Under the proposal, the rate would have increased 75 cents each year after that until it reached $13 in 2024. Subsequent adjustments were to be based on increases to the federal minimum rate or a cost-of-living index.

The withdrawal comes a month after a state judge allowed the initiative to proceed and rejected challenges raised by a coalition of business interests.

Fulkerson said supporters of raising the minimum wage will look to bring the issue before the 2017 Legislature or to voters in 2018.

Contact Sandra Chereb at schereb@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3821. Find her on Twitter: @SandraChereb