SACRAMENTO >> Landmark legislation that would make California the first state in the nation to set a $15 an hour minimum wage sailed through an Assembly committee this morning, setting up historic floor votes on the measure scheduled for Thursday.
The Assembly Appropriations Committee approved Senate Bill 3 on a 13-7 vote over the objections of Republican lawmakers who urged their colleagues not to rush through what opponents of the measure called “an enormous experiment.”
But Sen. Mark Leno, the author of the legislation, said the Legislature shouldn’t wait any longer to lift as many as two million Californians who currently work full-time and earn the minimum wage out of poverty.
“There’s no reason why someone working full time should be paid sub-poverty wages,” Leno said.
Gov. Jerry Brown announced the proposal to gradually boost California’s minimum wage over to the next several years earlier this week, calling the need to act “a matter of economic justice.”
