Governor Newsom is now reacting to reports claiming he won Panera Bread an exemption from the minimum wage law for fast food workers set to go into effect this year.
Bloomberg News says the Governor set the legal carve-out at the behest of his high school classmate and campaign donor Greg Flynn, who is the top franchisee of Panera restaurants in California.
After a day of silence, a spokesman for the Governor's office said Newsom never met with Flynn on the bill and called the report absurd.
The spokesman says the Governor's legal team has gone over the law again and says it does not exempt Panera.
Political analyst Dan Schnur tells us it looks like political damage control.
"Now that Newsom's office has at least said that Panera is not part of the bill, it's less likely to see this causing any real political damage unless we find out that there is more to be heard that we haven't yet learned," Schnur said.
If today's announcement from the Governor's office is all there is to the story, Schur believes, "They have kept a small political problem from becoming a full-on crisis."
Also, now commenting, Greg Flynn insists he had never asked for an exemption and was surprised when it was included in the law.
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