‘The ideal minimum wage is $0.00.’ Leading candidate to replace Newsom wants no requirement

California workers currently earn a minimum of $13 or $14 an hour, but Larry Elder says he’d get rid of a legal baseline altogether.

“For somebody who’s never run a business to tell business people... ‘I’m going to jack up your price of labor, and you’re going to deal with it,’ to me, it’s offensive,” said Elder, a longtime conservative talk radio host and leading candidate to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election this fall.

“The ideal minimum wage is $0.00,” he added.

During a wide-spanning interview with McClatchy’s California editorial boards on Aug. 3, Elder expounded on his plans for governing California, which he argues are based on “common sense” principles that “Joe and Joan Sixpack” can agree with.

He said minimum wages are burdensome on businesses and cut down on jobs. Current California law requires a $14 minimum wage for employers with 26 or more employees and $13 for employers with less than 26 employees.

“Why two people who are adults can’t determine what the price of labor ought to be, is beyond me, and why a third party feels it is his or her business to interfere with that is also beyond me,” he said.

Elder, who grew up in Los Angeles, has for decades shared his conservative views via a nationally-syndicated radio show and newspaper columns. After entering the recall race in July, Elder quickly became the leading candidate, outpacing fellow California Republicans who have been campaigning for months.

Unlike former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer or Assembly Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, Elder has no elected governing experience ⁠— but argued that a government background isn’t strictly necessary for running California.

“There was a gentleman who came out of Hollywood, who was not on talk radio for 27 years, as I have been, was not on every major market in California from Sacramento down to San Diego, was not a syndicated columnist for some 23 years, as I am... he came out of Hollywood, and became a pretty good two-term governor and a pretty good president,” Elder said. “I’m not comparing myself to Ronald Reagan, what I am saying is that sometimes political experience doesn’t tell you anything.”

The latest poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies shows Newsom’s lead in the recall shrinking, with 47% of likely California voters in support of removing the first-term Democrat compared to 50% who would vote to keep him in office. Elder has the greatest support among the 46 candidates, with 18% of likely voters saying they’d back him as a replacement.

If he does win, Elder said his first actions will be around homelessness, school choice, and crime.

Elder said he would declare a statewide emergency on homelessness in order to waive the CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which he says will quickly facilitate low-cost housing construction across the state. He would also take action to implement school choice in California, so that state dollars “follow the child rather than the other way around.”

When it comes to rising crime, Elder said he would use the governor’s bully pulpit to address the issue, and criticized some district attorneys for being “soft on crime.” Elder said he supports the recall attempts of both Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco district attorney, and George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney.

He also attributed the state’s rising crime rates to the recent criticisms of policing.

“This business about the police engaging in systemic racism is false. It’s a lie,” he said. “The police, because of this false accusation, are engaging in what’s called passive policing as opposed to proactive policing, they’re pulling back.”

Instead of discussing systemic racism and “falsely accusing police of participating in it,” Elder argued California should focus on education and opportunity for Black children. He blamed the “War on Poverty,” introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, for the breakdown of the American family unit and increasing the likelihood of Black kids to drop out of school and participate in crime.

“Because of the welfare state .... we’ve incentivized women to marry the government,” he said. “We’ve allowed men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility.”

During the hour-long interview, Elder also said he has received the COVID-19 vaccine, though he would not mandate it for Californians. He also said he believes in climate change, but is not an “alarmist” like some Democrats, and would like to expand the use of nuclear energy in the state.

If elected, Elder would have less than a year in office before facing reelection and would be battling a supermajority of Democrats in the Legislature.

Previously, the radio host said he believed the state to be “ungovernable,” but after more thought, he says he is confident that he could veto legislation without an override and effect change in the Golden State.

“The more I got into this, the more I became optimistic that maybe, just maybe, somebody named Larry Elder can do a little something about some of the problems plaguing California,” he said.

This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 2:43 PM with the headline "‘The ideal minimum wage is $0.00.’ Leading candidate to replace Newsom wants no requirement."