California Democrats engage in a dishonest competition of fast-food victors and victims

Part of California’s decay can be attributed to the corrupt governance and legislating that comes from the Democratic Party’s single-party rule, and that continues to be on display with the state’s new fast food regulations.

California approved exemptions from its fast food minimum wage and oversight board law on Monday for locations in places including airports, arenas, and college campuses, among others. According to legislators, this is because the fast food employees at these locations already have collective bargaining agreements with higher wages and more benefits, and therefore, the law need not cover them.

But there are more juicy details about the exemptions and the process behind them. KCRA 3, the local media outlet based in Sacramento that broke the news about Panera’s possible exemption from the law (more on that later), reported that the Service Employees International Union managed to freeze out other labor groups in negotiations over the law. That reportedly included nondisclosure agreements for representatives of the fast food industry.

That brings us to the other exemption that was not just procedurally suspicious but substantively suspicious. That exemption spares restaurants from the law if they make and sell bread as a stand-alone menu item. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is friends with billionaire Greg Flynn, whose company controls several Panera Bread restaurants throughout the state. Newsom’s administration then came out and said it “appears” Panera would not be exempt from the law under its interpretation that it reached in response to backlash.

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Yet it hasn’t been made clear who that exemption does apply to and whether or not it applies to Panera. And while Flynn has said he would be raising the minimum wage to match the law, the law contains other provisions aside from wages. It is all shrouded in secrecy, with exemptions handed out to be interpreted later at the convenience of California’s administrative state — which is, of course, run by the Democrats.

Special carveouts and exemptions are how California has been run over the last decade, from COVID-19 lockdown exemptions for Hollywood to doling out exemptions to the state’s freelancing restrictions for some industries while forcing others to continue to operate under the boot. California Democrats like picking winners and losers, so long as they are doing it in backrooms out of sight of any real public accountability.