Recent Development by Laura Gavioli
New Orleans voters, on February 2, 2002, strongly endorsed Ordinance 20,376 (Sept. 20, 2001), amending the city charter to increase the minimum wage of employees working in the city to $6.15 per hour, or $1 above the federal minimum wage. The ordinance was in direct conflict with a state law passed in 1997, which prohibited municipalities from enacting any kind of minimum wage law. In the days following the citywide vote, two groups filed suits seeking declaratory judgments on the validity of the city ordinance. After the cases were consolidated, the Orleans Parish Civil District Court upheld the ordinance, finding that section 23:64 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes was an unconstitutional exercise of the state legislature's police power and that the city ordinance was valid because it did not interfere with any of the Louisiana Constitution's limitations on New Orleans' municipal powers. On direct appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court, the court held that the city ordinance was invalid under article VI, section 9(B) of the Louisiana Constitution because the ordinance impermissibly abridged the police power of the state. New Orleans Campaign for a Living Wage v. City of New Orleans, 825 So. 2d 1098, 1108 (La. 2002).
About the Author
Laura Gavioli.
Citation
77 Tul. L. Rev. 1129 (2003)