Californians are not voting on AB5, they are voting on an "app based driver' bill that is exclusive to Lyft, Uber, Doordash and the other delivery services who joined together to spend millions of dollars to protect their businesses from AB5. This bill offers nothing tangible for anyone who is not driving for any of these companies, it does not at all change AB5, it just provides another exemption for another class of workers.
That said, it passed. What is unknown at this time is did it pass because of the millions of dollars of effective advertising that Silicon Valley put into this effort, or did it pass because the voters of California support the concept of freelancing. The pundits will start weighing in on that soon enough...
It would be wrong to assume that passing the bill means that voters are rejecting AB5, the fact that this thread is still alive shows that many California based freelancers and independent contractors are still finding out about AB5, and most people I discuss this with have no idea it exists.
The larger concern is H.R. 2474 which will apply AB5 at the national level. Even if Biden wins the electon the bill may have a hard time passing, but you can no longer call out California for passing this law when it is currently being discussed in the US House of Representatives. The unions want to make this law national...
