Advocacy News – March 25, 2026
What’s new: A push to overturn Michigan’s 2025 minimum wage law is over after organizers announced they didn’t collect enough signatures to make the 2026 ballot. Advocates needed 223,099 valid signatures by Monday, March 23, 2026. Missing that deadline means the law stays in effect.
Why it matters: The effort, led by One Fair Wage, targeted a bipartisan compromise law passed in 2025 alongside changes to the Earned Sick Time Act. One Fair Wage says they’re shifting strategy:
- 2026: Backing a ballot measure to ban political free speech by government contractors and utilities
- 2028: Planning a broader minimum wage proposal aimed at a “living wage” for all workers
Make no mistake: This is a win for the business community – especially restaurants – that supported the 2025 law as an alternative to a stricter, court-driven wage increase. Without the 2025 law, a prior ballot initiative would have pushed the tipped wage to 100% of the standard minimum wage by 2030, per a court ruling.
Another miss: It’s the second business-opposed ballot effort to fail for 2026, coming on the heels of proponents of a graduated income tax proposal saying they, too, aren’t going to submit enough valid signatures by the May 27 deadline to make the November ballot.
However, the so-called Michiganders of Money Out of Politics remains in the field. They face a May 27 deadline to collect 356,958 valid signatures. If successful, voters will be asked whether they want to pass a sweeping expansion of government control over political speech and association targeting specific industries and entities, effectively stripping them of core First Amendment rights.