This week, California passed Prop 22, allowing Uber and Lyft to classify drivers as independent contractors (and requiring a 7/8 legislative vote to amend).

One person to credit (along with her legislative colleagues) is CA lawmaker Lorena Gonzalez, the author of AB 5.

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On April 30, 2018, the CA Supreme Court decided Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court, creating a three-part test for when a worker is an employee under CA law. Dynamex, a delivery company, was found to be the employer of deliver drivers under the test.

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Many thought that the Dynamex test, applied to Uber/Lyft, would result in drivers being employees with accompanying benefits.

Rather than let that process play out, in December 2018, Gonzalez introduced a bill codifying Dynamex: AB 5.

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AB 5 wasn't necessary to change California employment law. If California had not passed AB 5, Dynamex would still be the default test for determining work status, and courts would apply it to future disputes over worker status, including with Uber and Lyft.

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Some professions did not want the Dynamex test, which would drastically change the status quo. For jobs in journalism or medicine, workers preferred the current system.

In a court case over their classification, a court might find Dynamex did not make sense to apply.

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But statutes, unlike common law, can't easily adjust to new facts. Those groups needed statutory carve outs from AB 5, and they sought them from the CA legislature. Most got them, though not ridesharing.

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So why would CA pass a law restating a legal test already in force that carved out many worker groups? Because it's good politics.

For state legislators, including Gonzalez, there is value in fighting Big Tech™, and AB 5 was good press.

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Gonzalez has continued this fight.

When restaurants complained about food delivery apps, Gonzalez introducing a law in February (AB 2149) that required DoorDash et al to provide the phone numbers and delivery addresses of users to restaurants they had ordered from.

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That provision was later stripped from the bill (which passed in September and prevented delivery from non-participating restaurants), but forced info-sharing was the chief framing of the bill when Gonzalez announced it.

https://a80.asmdc.org/press-releases/small-restaurants-exploited-delivery-apps-protected-under-new-legislation-lorena

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If AB 5 had not been enacted, Dynamex would still apply to Uber/Lyft, and Prop 22 would have looked like overreach and struggled to pass.

But because of a rush to exercise power for good optics, CA is now unable to amend Prop 22 without a 7/8 legislative majority.

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