St. Louis Judge Blocks Minimum Wage Increase In St. Louis

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The Missouri minimum wage is $7.65 an hour. And there it stays for the whole state, even if some cities want a minimum wage that’s above poverty level. Take St. Louis. The city’s minimum wage was set to go to $8.25 an hour on Thursday, on its way to $11 by 2018. But a judge has blocked that increase, because it’s against a state law banning such local raises. Get this, though: The state law banning local minimum wage increases was passed—overriding Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto— after St. Louis passed its increase in August, and after Kansas City passed an increase in July. The legislature’s veto override vote was in September:

The Senate vote was 23 to 9. The House voted 114 to 46 to override earlier in the day, meaning the bill will immediately become law.In addition to the minimum wage provisions, the bill also prohibits local governments from banning plastic grocery bags or mandating benefits on employers such as vacation or sick leave.

“Today is a loss for accountable, local governing,” said Kansas City Mayor Sly James. “I hope when voters realize the state took away their ability to improve their cities and the lives of the people who live in them, they will use their frustration to take on the legislators who abandoned them.”

Such “preemption” laws are one of the hot new Republican trends, with Republican state legislatures passing laws banning cities and counties from doing better by their residents. It’s not just minimum wage, as we see in the Missouri law—preemption laws have also targeted paid sick leave (Gov. Scott Walker signed such a law that undid paid sick leave in Milwaukee) and local fracking bans. Basically anything local government might do that Republicans don’t like.

Business groups, including the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, sued to block the St. Louis minimum wage raise, and Judge Steven Ohmer agreed with them. The city says it will appeal, but in the mean time—and likely until Missouri elects a better legislature—the city’s minimum wage workers will continue being paid poverty wages.