The fight to let voters decide if Kansas City should raise the minimum wage is continuing. Reverend Vernon Howard Jr., of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City, is helping lead the charge.
“If a person takes the responsibility to work for a living that person should have a moral and just economy and living wage in return,” he said.
Howard and others say they will soon take legal action so that Kansas City voters can decide in April, rather than August, if the minimum wage should be raised.
“It will take legal action, there’s no doubt about it,” said Howard.
Last Thursday, the Kansas City City Council declined to move a minimum wage ballot forward.
“I don’t necessarily think my colleagues are wanting not to place it on a ballot. I think it’s a measure of which ballot to place it on,” said councilman Jermaine Reed, who tried a procedural measure to get the council to pass the petition initiative and place it on the April 4th ballot.
The measure failed 7-6.
“I’m going to do everything I possibly can,” said Reed. “We’re not in legal trouble if we put it on the August ballot but I think that to give people a fighting chance on the front line, the petitioners who have been fighting so hard… this gives them that sort of fight that they have been looking for and that determination to get this sooner rather than later.”
Even if voters decide to increase the minimum wage in Kansas City, the state could still have the legal authority to prevent it from happening.
The Missouri State Legislature passed a law prohibiting cities from setting wage rates different from state guidelines.
However, a ruling recently handed down by the State Supreme Court said as long as the petitioners followed the proper procedure under city charter their measure should be placed on the ballot. If voters pass the measure, only then will the high court determine if state law trumps the city’s petition initiative.
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