Fake grassroots group tries to turn back Missouri's minimum wage gains [View all]

In her first attempt at being a citizen lobbyist, Jennifer Sawhill wondered whether she was doing it right. Earlier this year, the 29-year-old server at Bartolino’s Osteria on The Hill, was walking the marble halls of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City alongside Bob Bonney, CEO of the Missouri Restaurant Association. Sawhill was urging passage of Senate Bill 10, which is sponsored by Sen. Mike Cunningham, R-Rogersville.

She and Bonney kept visiting Republicans in the Missouri Senate who seemed already to support Cunningham’s bill.

“Why are we wasting our time talking to people who already agree with us?” she wondered.

Soon, she would have her answer.

Senate Bill 10 is not what she thought it was. Sawhill and other food servers like her were being used as props by the restaurant industry to try to undo elements of the increased minimum wage passed overwhelmingly by voters in Missouri last November.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-fake-grassroots-group-tries-to-turn-back-missouri-s/article_4e4ce73a-6435-5036-b6a0-8cef1752144b.html