California Republicans slam Newsom for $16 an hour job posting, but leave out a key detail

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California Republicans this week left out a key detail in their attacks on Gov. Gavin Newsom, after a restaurant partially owned by the governor posted an ad for a job paying $16 an hour, below the $20 an hour that many fast food restaurants are required to pay.

While GOP lawmakers, and the state party, were quick to make political hay about that story, they neglected to mention that Newsom in 2018 placed his business holdings in a blind trust, before he became governor. Therefore he has no control over what wages are being offered.

This attack comes as Newsom is fending off criticism over a deal that was worked out that appeared to grant Panera Bread an exemption to the state’s new fast food minimum wage law.

A friend and political ally of Newsom owns several Panera Bread franchises in the state. The governor has denied that any special deal was cut to exempt Panera Bread.

What is the controversy?

On Monday, the state’s new fast food $20-an-hour minimum wage law went into effect for many, but not all, fast food restaurants in the state.

The next day, Republicans including Rocklin Assemblyman Joe Patterson, began pointing out online that a job posting by PlumpJack Cafe, in Olympic Valley near Lake Tahoe, was recruiting bussers at a wage of $16 an hour. PlumpJack Cafe is part of the PlumpJack Group, of which Newsom is a partial owner.

“I wonder why @CAgovernor @GavinNewsom’s food businesses don’t pay $20/hour? Live job posting at $16/hr in Olympic Valley. It’s very, very expensive to live there… but he doesn’t do as he tells others and doesn’t pay a living wage,” Patterson wrote on X, formerly Twitter on Tuesday.

On Tuesday afternoon, the California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson put out a statement, blasting Newsom’s “hypocrisy” and saying that the minimum wage law “has been mishandled every step of the way.”

“PaneraGate. Alleged pay-to-play schemes and corruption. Negotiations run by Newsom mega-donor SEIU. NDAs. Ignoring questions from impacted businesses. Rushed passage. Newsom and California Democrats may have finally outdone themselves with the level of incompetence they’ve brought to governing,” she said.

The PlumpJack Cafe does not fall under the new minimum wage law — that law applies only to “national fast food chains” with more than 60 establishments across the country that offer no or limited table service. The PlumpJack Group did not respond to The Bee’s request for comment.

After this story was published, California GOP spokeswoman Ellie Hockenbury told The Bee in an email statement that “Gavin Newsom is still prominently featured as the founder of PlumpJack. PlumpJack’s website links to Newsom’s campaign page. His sister currently runs PlumpJack. It sends a pretty mixed message to businesses struggling to implement this disastrous new law when the governor’s own family-run business doesn’t feel compelled to follow it.”

What is a blind trust?

In their rush to attack Newsom for this perceived hypocrisy, Republicans left out the fact that Newsom has placed his businesses in a blind trust.

“A blind trust is a type of living trust that separates an individual from key financial knowledge of their assets,” according to CNBC. “The individual would assign their assets to a trustee who would then be in control of all of the decision-making processes regarding the assets.”

That individual then would have no further involvement in the handling of those assets, according to CNBC.

Blind trusts often are used by politicians before they enter office to avoid a conflict of interest. Before becoming president, Jimmy Carter famously put his peanut farm into a blind trust, according to USA Today. President Donald Trump declined to place his assets in a blind trust, in a break with tradition. Instead, he placed his holdings in a revocable trust, according to the New York Times.

After being elected governor of California in 2018, Newsom placed his holdings in a blind trust.

“Newsom will also disclose his personal and business holdings each year on his statement of economic interest and separate himself from the PlumpJack Group wine and hospitality businesses that he has built,” Newsom spokesman Nathan Click told the Los Angeles Times at the time.

In a statement to The Bee, Click said that Newsom “has no role in any of the holdings that may be held by the blind trust.”