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- Lyft could pay $3,371 for not noting it paid for some Prop 22 ads.
- Lyft spent $48 million campaigning for Prop 22, which would allow it to pay drivers as contractors.
- California voters approved the legislation in the November election.
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Lyft is being threatened with a $3,371 fine for not disclosing that it paid for some ads apart of its Proposition 22 campaign in California.
The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission is proposing that the rideshare company be fined $1,499 for email ads that didn’t include a note indicating they were paid for by Lyft, $936 for robocalls and text ads that were also missing such a message, and $936 for robocalls and text ads that bore the wrong name, according to a report from Vice.
Spokespeople for Lyft and the FPPC did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
If Lyft is fined the commission’s proposed amount, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $48 million that the company poured into the Prop 22 campaign. Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates collectively spent over $200 million to push the legislation that would allow the gig-based companies to continue paying and classifying its drivers as contractors, not full-time employees. California voters approved Prop 22 in the November election.
The group of companies first crafted the proposition after California passed Assembly Bill 5 in late 2019, which required companies to classify all of their workers as employees. The proposition was meant to exempt them from the new gig law, and the companies did not adhere to AB5 up to the point that Prop 22 passed in November.
Instead of all workers having full-time employee status, Prop 22 requires gig companies to provide an alternative set of benefits to cover expenses, including healthcare subsidies.
AB5 impacted other industries like media and trucking, and workers in those sectors also pushed back on the law. Even AB5 creator, California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, has acknowledged that the law was not perfect when it passed in September 2019.