Get ready to vote on Prop. 206 (minimum wage)

PHOENIX — If Arizonans approve a hike in the minimum wage, be prepared to pay an extra 30 cents for that $5 burger, fries and soda at your favorite fast-food restaurant.

That’s the conclusion of a study by the Grand Canyon Institute, which looked at the effects on Arizona if voters approve Proposition 206 on the November ballot. The measure would increase the state minimum wage, currently $8.05 an hour, to $10 an hour in January and to $12 an hour in 2020.

Passage would mean more money for about 790,000 Arizonans, or close to 30 percent of the state’s workforce, figures Dave Wells, research director for the institute. That includes not only workers at the very bottom of the pay scale but also those now making above $12 who likely would find their salaries pushed up.

“These (latter) workers should also expect a modest pay increase, as employers try to preserve some level of a premium above the minimum wage to encourage better morale, productivity and lower turnover,” he wrote.

On the other side of the equation, Wells estimates employers seeking to blunt the effect of higher expenses would cost Arizonans about 13,000 jobs.

That number includes layoffs, jobs not filled when workers leave, and the loss of new positions that would otherwise be created, he said.

Garrick Taylor, spokesman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the study backs at least some of the arguments his organization has been making against the proposition.

“There is finally evidence and acknowledgment that this nearly 50 percent wage hike will result in job loss,” he said.

There are two problems with Taylor’s prediction of a “nearly 50 percent wage hike.”

One is math.

The 2006 voter-approved law that created the state’s first-ever minimum wage requires annual adjustments matched to inflation.

That’s what moved the figure from $6.75 an hour then to $8.05 now, and is going to increase the minimum to $8.15 an hour in 2017 even if Proposition 206 fails.

Assuming inflation of 1.5 percent for the next three years, the minimum wage would reach $8.50 an hour in 2020. So the likely difference if the proposition passes is 41 percent.

Also, Wells said Taylor isn’t taking into account that a $12 minimum wage would finally bring the buying power of Arizonans back to where it was in 1968. That’s when the federal minimum wage was $1.60 an hour.

The buying power of Arizonans was on a decade-long decline until the 2006 minimum-wage measure was approved, and has stayed pretty much even since then because of the automatic inflation adjustment.

Wells cited figures from the Economic Policy Institute in concluding that close to 90 percent of the workers who would benefit from the proposition are at least 20 years old.

More than half of the workers who could get a pay increase are in full-time jobs of at least 35 hours a week, he said.

Taylor said that even if the figure of 790,000 workers who would benefit is accurate, it does not overcome the anticipated job losses.

“It’s not a small price to pay for the folks who will lose their job or, going forward, will miss out on the opportunities to grab that first rung on the career ladder,” he said. The measure would stifle job creation, he added.

As to what the measure would cost consumers, Wells, basing his estimate on other studies, predicts the higher cost of labor would boost prices anywhere from 0.5 percent to 1.6 percent.

Hardest hit, he said, are likely to be restaurants.

He said labor represents about 31 percent of total costs in full-service restaurants and about 25 percent in limited-service places like fast-food operations.

But full-service restaurants are likely to have a smaller percentage of their workers at minimum wage. For servers, that figure is currently $5.05 an hour, with Arizona law allowing a “tip credit” of $3 an hour. If Proposition 206 passes, the new minimum wage for tipped workers would be $9 a hour.

At fast-food places, a higher percentage of workers are at or near the minimum wage and tips are not a factor. Wells said the worst-case scenario would be a 10 percent increase in costs. That presumes every worker at a fast-food establishment is now being paid the bare minimum, something he said is unlikely.

So he settled at a figure of a 6 percent increase in food prices at restaurants.

There’s an interesting ripple effect. Wells figures that families earning at least $100,000 a year actually would be harmed a bit by higher minimum wages in the economy: They would be hit by the higher costs but wouldn’t get any real benefit on the income side.

Neither Taylor nor Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant Association who was reviewing the report on Friday, criticized its methodology.

Former Democratic state lawmaker George Cunningham, a member of the Grand Canyon Institute board, said the study was not sponsored or paid for by anyone. He said the three largest sources of donations this year to the nonprofit group are Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill, the Arizona Education Association and the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona.

PHOENIX — Just days before early ballots go out, foes of a higher minimum wage finally have some money to spend on the campaign.

But it’s just $20,000. And Garrick Taylor, spokesman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry conceded that the money, which made it into the anti-Prop. 206 account Friday, may be far too little to defeat what appears to be a popular proposal.

“Hopefully, you’ll be seeing more in the coming weeks,” Taylor said, with more resources available to put out the chamber’s message that increasing the minimum wage in steps to $12-an-hour by 2020 will hurt business and cause some firms to lay off workers.

Taylor said, however, he recognizes the hurdle in trying to kill the initiative.

A recent poll showed Proposition 206 with close to a 2-1 lead among those questioned. That’s the same margin that approved a 2006 measure that first created a state minimum wage higher than what the federal government requires.

And Taylor acknowledged that similar measures have gained approval in other cities and states.

“This is not an insubstantial endeavor,” he said.

What is making it even harder is that the business community as a whole, for whatever reason, is not willing to plunk down the kind of cash it would take to even have a chance of killing the measure.

That has annoyed Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant Association.

His organization took the lead in trying to keep the measure from ever getting to voters in the first place, filing suit challenging the qualifications of paid circulators.

A judge concluded that many of the signatures were probably invalid but ruled that the lawsuit was not filed on time. The result was that his organization had to absorb not only its own legal fees but also pay for the lawyers hired by the other side.

That’s a figure he would not disclose. But Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families reported its own legal fees at $41,500.

Chucri acknowledged that a $12 minimum wage, up from the current $8.05 an hour, would hit his industry particularly hard. But he told Capitol Media Services he expected other interests to step up.

“This isn’t only a restaurant issue,” he said.

“This is a business issue,” Chucri continued. “And if others aren’t going to stand up, we can’t win a ‘no’ campaign in a vacuum.”

More to the point, he said restaurant owners are unwilling to finance the fight on their own. And if that means the measure is approved, his members will deal with it.

“We’re going to raise prices to offset this cost,” he said.

“We’re going to eliminate jobs,” Chucri said. “And we’ll turn to automation.”

Lack of money is not a problem for the other side.

Campaign-finance reports show proponents gathered more than $1.65 million by the middle of last month. Even with expenditures to put the measure on the ballot and fight a legal challenge, that still left them with more than $105,000.

Since that filing deadline, though, records reviewed by Capitol Media Services show the campaign has picked up at least another $330,000. That includes a $250,000 from the National Education Association and $60,000 from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a nonprofit that, according to its filings with the Internal Revenue Service “promotes social welfare through public education and advocacy regarding progressive policies.”

The largest donor since the campaign began, however, remains Living United for Change in Arizona, which put up close to $1 million.

Given that funding disparity and the poll numbers, that raises the question of whether there is anything the business community can do at this late to defeat the measure.

“We acknowledge that time is short,” Taylor said. “But the only poll that counts is the one taken ... in November.”

That, however, ignores the fact that early ballots are being sent out Wednesday, meaning voters can begin immediately making their choices and dropping them in the mail.

PHOENIX — Three weeks before Arizonans start voting, a statewide business group has launched a campaign to kill Proposition 206.

Glenn Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, acknowledged Monday it will take a “seven-digit” investment to convince voters to reject the proposal, which would increase the state’s minimum wage immediately to $10 an hour and by 2020 to $12 an hour. The same measure would require businesses to provide at least three days of paid leave a year.

“We’re going to raise as much as we can,” Hamer said, declining to specify a dollar figure.

His organization is starting not only late but also from behind: A recent poll showed the measure with a 2-1 margin of support. And early voting starts Oct. 12.

“I’ll be the first to say this is an uphill climb,” Hamer said. When voters elsewhere have been presented with similar questions, he noted, “the passing rates are high.” But Hamer said there’s still time to change some minds.

A decade ago, Arizona voters approved a minimum wage of $6.75 an hour. At the time Arizona employers were subject only to federal laws and the $5.15-an-hour U.S. mandate. The measure approved then contains an automatic cost-of-living adjustment clause, which has put the current minimum wage at $8.05; in January, that will go to $8.15.

Businesses didn’t run much of a campaign against the 2006 measure — a mistake, Hamer said, they won’t repeat this time.

The key, he said, is recrafting how voters see the issue.

On the ballot, voters will see the title of “The Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act.” “We prefer to call it “The Opportunity Destruction Act,” said Hamer.

“Jacking up the minimum wage in this state by 50 percent is dramatic,” he said. “And adding in a paid time off component is also, in our view, harmful to job creation.”

Pollster Earl de Berge of the Phoenix-based Behavior Research Center, who did not conduct the earlier survey, said the poll results are not surprising. He said there is “widespread awareness that (the) minimum wage is pathetic in today’s economy.”

Hamer is not necessarily disputing that. What he hopes will dissuade voters is the size of the increase. “We believe the proponents of this have overshot,” he said. “Going up 50 percent, going to $12 an hour, particularly in rural Arizona, is way too much.”

So, then, what does his organization think might be appropriate? “Well, the discussion on the federal level until recently has been $10.10,” Hamer said.

“That’s a number that President Obama has used,” he said, referring to the president’s 2015 State of the Union address urging Congress to adopt that number. “People like Mitt Romney have used similar figures,” Hamer added.

Since then, however, Democrats have become more aggressive, pushing for a $15 figure. Hamer blamed that on a “bidding war” among candidates.

The business community never offered a $10.10 alternative here. About the closest it came was a proposal earlier this year by the Arizona Restaurant Association to ask voters to instead set the minimum wage at $8.41 an hour this coming year, going to $9.50 by 2020. The measure cleared the state Senate with Republican support but died in the House.

Proponents of Proposition 206 had raised more than $1.4 million as of mid-August, the most recent campaign finance report available. But $900,000 of that went to hire paid circulators. With other expenses, that report showed the committee had about $127,000 on hand.

No matter how much each side spends, de Berge said it may not be enough.

“Even a million dollars may get lost in the candidate combat that is expected this year in Arizona,” he said, with not just the presidential race but also a high-profile contest for the U.S. Senate and some hot-button congressional races.

That has not escaped Bill Scheel, campaign manager for Proposition 206.

“It definitely takes millions of dollars to break through that din,” he said. Scheel declined to say how much is in the pro-206 budget but said he expects to have enough to conduct a full-scale campaign including television, newspaper and direct mail ads.

PHOENIX — The private firm that collected signatures to put Proposition 206 on the November ballot is claiming it did not get fully paid.

In a lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, Sign Here Petitions LLC says it is still owed $65,000 by backers of the proposal to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.

Attorney Paul Weich said that does not include a $1,000-a-day penalty that initiative organizers agreed to pay in late fees.

But Bill Scheel, the campaign’s manager, said if anyone breached the contract, it was the signature-gathering firm.

He said the contract required it to produce sufficient valid signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

But Scheel pointed out that Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joshua Rogers disqualified tens of thousands of names because it turned out the circulators had not properly registered with the state.

The only thing that saved the measure from being thrown off the ballot is that the foes failed to file their challenge within five days after the petitions were filed. So Rogers ruled — and the Supreme Court affirmed — that the signatures gathered by the disqualified circulators could remain and be counted.

Weich scoffed at Scheel’s response.

“The fact is, they’re not off the ballot,” he said, adding the flaws in the circulators’ registrations are “kind of a moot point” because Rogers did agree to count the signatures.

The filing of the lawsuit did not go unnoticed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which is leading the effort to persuade voters to reject the initiative.

Chamber spokesman Garrick Taylor derided initiative backers for failing to pay the bill.

++++++++-206 crowd says it’s the champion of the little guy, the small business that helped the initiative get to the ballot is taking a beating according to a lawsuit,” he said in a written statement.

But Scheel said that, given the signature-gathering company’s performance, he questions whether it earned the money — and added that it was already paid about $900,000.

He said the campaign committee is trying to make sure that individual circulators who properly gathered signatures are not stiffed and has paid out about $8,000 directly to circulators whose petitions were ruled valid.

Current law requires Arizona employers to pay at least $8.05 an hour, a figure based on the amount set in a 2006 voter-approved initiative plus inflation. That will go up automatically in January to $8.15.

Proposition 206 would put the 2017 minimum wage at $10 an hour, going to $12 in 2020, with future hikes linked to inflation.

It also would require workers to be given at least three days of paid sick leave each year.

Arizona’s minimum-wage workers will get at least a dime-an-hour raise in January — their first increase in two years — no matter what voters decide in November.

New figures Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers increased 1.1 percent between August of 2015 and last month, largely because of higher health-care costs.

What’s important about that is a 2006 voter-approved initiative requires the Industrial Commission of Arizona to adjust the state’s minimum wage each year based on the August figures.

The current minimum wage is $8.05 an hour. The Industrial Commission, using a slightly more detailed calculation, translates the inflation to about 8.6 cents. But the law also requires the commission to round the figure to the nearest nickel, and that means a dime increase starting Jan. 1.

That 10 cents an hour will add $208 a year to the wages of a full-time worker, before taxes, moving the new minimum annual wage to $16,952 for full-time work.

The commission is scheduled to formally approve the increase next month.

It could go up a lot more.

In November, voters will get a chance to decide whether to impose an immediate increase to $10 an hour, with future boosts until it hits $12 an hour by 2020. At that point, the same CPI index would kick in again for future increases.

How many Arizonans will benefit from a boost in the minimum wage is unclear.

The most recent figures from the BLS show about 44,000 in the state who are at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Both state and federal laws allow for lower minimum wages for workers who also get tips; Arizona’s 2006 law provides a $3 an hour “tip credit,” allowing companies to pay that much less to their workers who can supplement their pay with gratuities. Also, some firms are exempt from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

If voters approve Proposition 206, about 770,000 Arizonans — about a quarter of the workforce — currently earn less than $10 an hour and would get an immediate boost, said campaign manager Tomas Robles, citing BLS statistics.

There also would likely be a ripple effect, with employers forced to pay more than $10 an hour to keep more experienced workers.

That could drive up the median wage in Arizona, most recently listed by BLS at $16.67 an hour. That’s the number at which half of those employed are making more and half are making less.

The median federal wage is $17.40 an hour.

PHOENIX — Arizonans will get to decide in November whether to hike the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020 and require employers to give their workers paid time off.

In a brief order Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court said the Arizona Restaurant Association waited too long before filing its lawsuit challenging whether there were sufficient valid signatures to put Proposition 206 on the ballot. Justice Scott Bales, writing for the court, said the statute gives foes just five days to act after the petitions are filed with the Secretary of State’s Office.

The high court specifically rejected arguments by attorneys for the restaurant group that the Legislature, in crafting the law, must have meant that challengers have five business days. That would exclude weekends, which would have made the lawsuit timely.

Bales, however, said lawmakers know that words mean what they say.

“When the legislature wants to designate the meaning of ‘days’ in election statutes to be something other than calendar days ... it has done so expressly,” he wrote. Bales said that did not happen here.

The fight over the meaning of “five days” was crucial because Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joshua Rogers ruled that many of the people who had circulated petitions had not complied with laws requiring them to register with the Secretary of State’s Office and provide an Arizona address where they could be contacted. That would disqualify all the signatures they gathered, leaving the petition drive short of the legal minimum.

But Rogers ruled — and the Supreme Court agreed — that it doesn’t matter whether the petitions are flawed because the challengers waited too long to bring their lawsuit.

The ruling provoked an angry reaction from Steve Chucri, president of the restaurant group.

“The laws that are in place to protect voters and the initiative process from noncompliant political committees and petition circulators exist for a reason,” he said in a written statement. “The court’s ruling overlooks those important interests in favor of a technicality.”

Until 2006 there was no state minimum wage, with Arizona employers subject only to the federal requirement to pay workers $5.15 an hour. An initiative approved by a 2-1 margin that year created a state minimum of $6.75 an hour with a requirement for annual adjustments linked to inflation that has now moved it to $8.05.

The current $8.05 an hour translates out to $16,744 a year.

Proposition 206 would mean an immediate increase to $10 an hour in January, going to $12 by 2020. It also retains the requirement for inflation-indexed future increases.

It adds something not in the original law: a requirement for three days of paid leave for workers of small firms and five days for those employed at larger firms.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry is geared up for a fight.

“We are prepared to make our case to voters that a 50 percent increase in the minimum wage and mandated paid leave is bad for job creators and job seekers,” said Glenn Hamer, the chamber’s president. He echoed the theme of business interests trying to suppress higher minimum wages at the federal level, saying such a change “will actually hurt the hardworking Arizonans the initiative’s proponents claim to want to help.”

Pro-206 campaign consultant Bill Scheel said polling already shows strong support.

“We don’t need to convince people to vote for this,” he said.

But Scheel acknowledged, “The Restaurant Association and the chamber are going to pull out all the stops. We’re going to be aggressively fundraising to run a competitive campaign.”

And that, he conceded, means having more than already has been contributed.

“I’ve run enough statewide races to know that $1.4 million isn’t enough,” Scheel said, declining to publicly state a budget for the race.

The proponents are already in line for a small cash infusion: The Supreme Court ordered the restaurant group to reimburse them for what they had to pay their attorneys to fight the challenge. Scheel estimated those fees at $70,000.

Chamber spokesman Garrick Taylor said no decision has been made about how much money will be needed to try to kill Proposition 206.

PHOENIX — Proponents of raising the state’s minimum wage have already collected more than $1.4 million to put the issue on the November ballot and persuade voters to support it.

But there’s no word on how much the Arizona Restaurant Association has spent so far trying to keep Proposition 206 from ever getting to voters.

New campaign finance reports that were due Friday show donations of $1,357,509 to Arizonans for Fair Wages and Health Families, with another $100,000 on loan from campaign consultant Bill Scheel. Most of the money — about $900,000 — was spent hiring paid circulators to put the issue on the ballot.

But the Secretary of State’s Office said Friday that it has yet to get a spending report from foes. In fact, spokesman Matt Roberts said foes have not even filed to form a campaign committee, a legal prerequisite for spending any money for or against ballot measures.

There clearly has been some spending.

The restaurant association hired attorneys and filed suit on July 14 in a legal bid, unsuccessful to date, to have the measure removed from the November ballot. And the report due Friday is supposed to cover all expenses through Aug. 18.

Neither Steve Chucri, president of the restaurant group, nor Chiane Hewer, its spokeswoman, returned repeated calls seeking comment.

Roberts said his office has no legal opinion on whether the money spent in court over ballot measures has to be reported. But the legal expenses incurred by initiative supporters are listed, with their report saying the group paid $70,000 to the Torres Law Group to defend them in the lawsuit brought by the restaurant association.

Proposition 206, if approved in November, would immediately raise the state minimum wage from $8.05 an hour to $10. It would hit $12 an hour by 2020, with future increases linked to inflation.

It also would require companies to provide five days of paid sick leave a year; small employers would have to offer three days.

There is one thing missing, however, from the report by the pro-206 group.

The report shows $998,684 of the donations coming from Living United for Change in Arizona.

But Tomas Robles, the former director of LUCHA who is now chairing the campaign, said some of those dollars came from elsewhere. He said the organization has been the beneficiary of funds from groups like the Center for Popular Democracy and the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

Robles said, though, that the way Arizona law has been amended by the Republican-controlled Legislature does not require detailing the specific donors or the amounts they gave.

While any spending by the restaurant association to date is unknown, the campaign is likely to be overshadowed, at least financially, by the fight over Proposition 205.

Proposition 205

That measure would legalize the recreational use of marijuana by adults; current law limits use of the drug to adults who have certain medical conditions, a doctor’s recommendation and a state-issued ID card.

So far the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has amassed more than $3 million in donations.

Of that, $778,950 comes from the Marijuana Policy Project, the national group that funded the successful 2010 campaign for medical marijuana. A separate Marijuana Policy Project Foundation kicked in another $236,572.

Virtually all of the other five- and six-figure donations come from existing medical marijuana dispensaries. Proposition 205 would give them first crack at getting a license for one of the fewer than 150 retail outlets that would be allowed until 2021.

So far the campaign has spent nearly $2.6 million.

The opposition Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy reported collected $950,011 but has spent less than $294,000.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce is the largest single source of funds for the anti-205 campaign, so far putting in $114,000.

There’s also a $100,000 donation from T. Sanford Denny. He’s the chairman of United National Corp. which Bloomberg says is a privately owned holding company for First Premier Bank.

Another $100,000 was chipped in by Randy Kendrick, wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick.

Pay cap

The new reports also show that a branch of the Service Employees International Union spent $2.1 million in its ill-fated attempt to put a measure on the ballot to cap the compensation of nonmedical hospital executives at $450,000 a year. Proponents gave up after a lawsuit was filed contending that many of the people who circulated petitions had not complied with state law, voiding any of the signatures they collected.

The Oct. 15 article in the Arizona Daily Star regarding Proposition 206 attempted to paint a picture that if the measure passes on Nov. 8, the impact of a 25 percent increase in the minimum wage next January would be minimal and would only add about 30 cents to a $5 burger order.

We have had a restaurant here for over 30 years, and the impact this would have on our operation next year would be anything but minimal.

We have about 30 mostly part-time employees. Only about two or three of our employees at any point in time are paid the minimum wage. Generally we pay that rate only to high school students on their first job.

In 2015 our payroll costs increased 10 percent and in 2016 will go up about 12 percent from the previous year. Most of this increase is due to a tightening of the local labor market. We have no objection to these increases. It’s a matter of supply and demand, and it’s the way our system should work

The mandated $2-an-hour increase that would become effective Jan. 1 would have a devastating effect on us. At a very minimum, we would have to increase every employee’s wage rate $2. Just this increase would increase our payroll costs 20 percent in 2017. In addition, related payroll taxes, workers’ compensation insurance and a sick-pay provision included in Prop. 206 would result in total payroll costs increasing 25 percent next year.

In the past we have increased menu prices by about 2 to 3 percent annually and in some years had no increase.

Next year, just to cover the increased payroll costs, we will have to increase the price of items on our menu a minimum of 8.5 percent.

In order to cover the cost increases of other expenses like rent, insurance, maintenance, etc., we will have to have at least a 10 percent increase in total. That is an increase three times higher than we have ever had. It would be more of the same through 2020 as the minimum-wage rate mandate increases to $12 an hour.

This proposition should not even be on the ballot. A significant number of signatures to put the measure on the ballot were ruled invalid by the Superior Court judge handling the case, but he and the Arizona Supreme Court ruled based on the “letter of the law” rather than on common sense. The hapless Arizona Restaurant Association had filed its lawsuit challenging the petitions two days too late.

Propositions like 206 allow workers to set their own wage rates. These mandated increases are detrimental to the vast majority of small businesses in Arizona whose success or failure has a significant impact on our state’s economy. Small businesses and workers in the labor force would be best served by having minimum wage rates set by state and local governments.

We would hope that voters on Nov. 8 will view Prop. 206 as something that sounds good but has heavy costs both to small business and the workers of Arizona and will vote “no” to defeat this flawed measure.

PHOENIX — Leading in the polls and with lots of money to spend, the group pushing to increase the minimum wage has now turned its sights to defeating political foes.

Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families has put more than $62,000 into efforts to affect a handful of legislative races, financial disclosure reports show.

The mailers target Republican incumbents and candidates who Bill Scheel, campaign manager for Proposition 206, said are the kind of lawmakers who would vote to undermine the minimum-wage initiative if it passes.

Scheel said these particular races were chosen because they are competitive and represent opportunities for Democrats to add some seats to the House and Senate.

The move is being criticized by Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, a foe of the minimum-wage hike. She contends it is illegal for a committee that was organized to raise money to persuade voters to approve a ballot measure to now use some of those dollars to affect candidate races.

Lesko, in her complaint to the secretary of state, does not contend the people who donated to Proposition 206 are forbidden from influencing individual races. But she said they have to form a separate committee, with separate reports.

Garrick Taylor of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which has found itself being outmaneuvered — and outspent — by initiative proponents, has his own take on the issue. He argues that the groups that are supporting Proposition 206, particularly national unions, have an alternate agenda.

“It’s now become apparent that Proposition 206 is just one element of a bigger play by labor in Arizona to make this state more hostile to job creators,” Taylor said.

Scheel, however, said the expenditures to oust GOP incumbents and prevent others from getting elected is all part of the same campaign.

He pointed out that Republicans were involved in efforts to undermine the original 2006 initiative that first established a state minimum wage. That includes a 2013 law that sought to preclude cities, towns and counties from adopting their own minimum wages higher than what the state mandates.

It took Attorney General Mark Brnovich to rule that legislation was illegal because the 2006 law specifically permits that local option. And, having been approved by voters, lawmakers were powerless to alter it.

“We think it’s important that voters know which legislative candidates are supportive of Prop. 206 and which legislators are likely to attempt to undermine the will of the voters and undercut Prop. 206 after it’s enacted,” Scheel said.

The original 2006 initiative established a state minimum wage of $6.75 an hour at a time when employers in Arizona were subject only to the federal minimum of $5.15. The ballot measure also requires annual inflation adjustments that have pushed the state figure up to $8.05; it will go to $8.15 automatically on Jan. 1.

Proposition 206 proposes to boost the minimum wage to $10 an hour in January, rising to $12 by 2020. It also includes a requirement for a certain number of days of paid personal leave.

The most recent financial disclosure statements show the pro-206 effort has collected more than $3 million. While some of that was spent gathering signatures, Scheel said there has been enough to have TV commercials running for three weeks already on both English and Spanish-speaking media along with radio commercials and direct mailers.

Major contributors include Living United for Change in Arizona, which put up close to $1 million, $500,000 from CPD Action, a national group that is involved in living wage issues, and $350,000 each from the Citizen Participation Action Fund and the National Education Association.

By contrast, the anti-206 effort is virtually nonexistent, with the state chamber putting in less than $26,000.

Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick made a stop in Tucson on Friday morning, asking voters to back Proposition 206.

Flanked by local Democrats, labor leaders and several women who are making minimum wage, Kirkpatrick recalled saving up her money while waitressing to purchase the cowboy boots that have become a hallmark of her Senate campaign.

“Those boots represent the value of hard work, the value of a dollar and fighting for working families here in Arizona,” Kirkpatrick said.

The Flagstaff Democrat quickly turned her attention to her Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, noting that he has repeatedly voted against proposals to raise the federal minimum wage.

“You should know that John McCain has voted against the minimum wage more than 20 times,” Kirkpatrick said.

Kirkpatrick noted that she paid all of her employees at her law firm in Flagstaff a living wage.

“No one who works 40 hours a week should live in poverty,”

Proposition 206 is a statewide proposition that would raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.

McCain’s campaign spokesperson, Lorna Romero, confirmed McCain does not support Proposition 206. She added he doesn’t support drastically increasing the minimum wage as it does not address the income gap.

“John McCain believes in a gradual increase in the minimum wage, but does not support Proposition 206. As economists have warned, a mandated increase to $12.00 per hour by 2020 would harm small businesses and result in less minimum wage jobs for those entering the workplace,” Romero said.