Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.
I am starting a series of blogs on a very complicated issue. Worker Power PAC (political action committee) successfully obtained enough Glendale voters’ signatures to, they hope, get a minimum wage of $20 an hour for hospitality workers on Glendale’s November 5th General Election ballot.
Glendale appealed to the Arizona Court of Appeals stating that the initiative language encompasses more than one subject. In 2022, Arizona required that all ballot measures must have one subject. The Court of Appeals upheld Worker Power’s position. Glendale has now appealed to the Supreme Court of Arizona, and we await their decision. Hopefully by next week.
Before there is an explanation of the Worker Power initiative, let’s find out more about this Super PAC. According to media reports, “The Worker Power PAC is a Democratic Party-aligned Super PAC founded in 2020 as the Working Arizona PAC that expanded to conduct activity in other competitive states in 2022 after changing its name. The PAC is closely aligned with organized labor and has received money from labor unions and other left-of-center advocacy groups including Unite HERE Local 11, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers, and the Arizona AFL-CIO.”
Worker Power in 2022 supported these Arizona candidates: Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D),
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D), and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D). It also claims through its efforts, it was responsible for radical Democrat Raphael Warnock’s win against Herschel Walker for a Georgia Congressional Senate seat.
As of July 20, 2024, Worker Power had reported total contributions of $4,106,415 and total expenditures of $3,737,230. It may be assumed that “Dark Money” from such groups as George Soros has secretly made its way into Worker Power coffers.
Locally, Worker Power endorsed radical activist Democrat Lupe Conchas in his successful bid to become the next Cactus district councilmember in Glendale. You can be sure that Conchas has greater ambitions than that of a councilmember in Glendale. After all, failed Glendale mayoral candidate Jamie Aldama on his Facebook page congratulated Conchas on his win and referred to him as the next US Senator Ruben Gallego.
Getting back to Worker Power. Their target has always been VIA resort which will be the largest resort hotel in Arizona with over 1200 rooms. That is a target just too juicy for them to pass up.
Their first round of attacks failed as they attempted to kill the use of a GPLET between the city and the VIA Resort. When the city declared that there was no GPLET nor would one be used, they had to come up with another plan of attack.
Why Glendale? They assumed that Glendale would be too unsophisticated to fight back and would be easy picking. They also wanted a win with the largest hotel in Arizona. With unlimited money at their disposal, this would be their signature fight. Then they could use the same tactic with other cities picking them off, one by one.
If history repeats itself, Glendale voters will reject this initiative just as in Phoenix when its voters rejected Worker Power’s candidate, Carlos Garcia, a former immigrants’ rights activist. Instead, Kesha Hodge Washington, his opponent won despite their $300,000 investment in Garcia’s candidacy.
In part 2, I will start to unpack their initiative, concept by concept.
© Joyce Clark, 2024
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