No Clear Mandate, and Uber Survives (For Now)

As I did four years ago, I spent the entire night viewing the election results through the backs of my eyelids.

That was a good decision: I am well-rested and, besides, most things remain as clear as mud anyway. That is good news: There will be no clear national mandate from this election. Actually, this is both good news and bad news, because neither big government, rights-trampling "side" deserves one.

... and Democrats bite. (Image by eggbank, via Unsplash license.)

Even the best, most solid news I could find -- that California seems to have passed Proposition 22 -- is both highly qualified and contingent.

That ballot measure, while not an outright repeal of that state's ill-conceived AB-5 contracting ban, does somewhat preserve the contracting model that Uber and Lyft pioneered. AB-5 created numerous unanticipated immediate effects on existing jobs in long-established industries -- as witness its "mile long" list of exemptions added after passage -- and severe ramifications even for other, longer-established business models, such as franchising.

To my eye, AB-5 looked more and more like it was specifically designed to kill Lyft and Uber, damn the consequences. The people it was supposedly designed to help begged for exemptions or repeal, and yet the legislature refused the latter. Perhaps the law is effectively dead in California.

But the candidacy of Biden and Harris -- who both want a national version of this law -- remains alive as does the possibility of them having both houses of Congress controlled by their party.

Today may end with the best news being that perhaps Democrats will be blamed for the mess they will not be able to resist creating. But, as I noted yesterday, I am not sure the knowledge will remain actionable, even if that sinks in.

-- CAV