JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Kansas City Council is expected to vote unanimously Thursday afternoon to approve a resolution urging the Missouri legislature to sustain Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of HB 722, better known as the “bag bill.”
The bill’s initial purpose effectively prevented cities from banning plastic bags, but amendments in response to St. Louis and Kansas City’s ongoing debates to raise the minimum wage in those cities quickly transformed HB 722 into a piece of legislation which would prohibit local governments from establishing minimum wages or employee benefits above the state level.
“Our residents deserve a city that works for them, and HB 722 would make it difficult to create needed changes that better the daily lives of our citizens,” Kansas City Councilman Jermaine Reed said. “It’s important to have a balance between local and state government, but this bill goes too far.”
Nixon vetoed the bill in early July, saying that it was “a clear example of unwarranted government intrusion – in this case, interference with the policymaking of local governments and the abandonment of the principle of local control… Just as there should be an appropriate allocation of responsibilities between federal and state governments, so too should the precept of local control apply to the relationship between state and local governments.”
A growing chorus of voices across the state have rallied to essentially beg the state not to pass this legislation in the upcoming veto session. A group of city mayors from municipalities across the state including Francis Slay of St. Louis and Sly James of Kansas City, formally announced their opposition to the legislation Wednesday. Earlier this week, Rhonda Perry, the program director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, published an editorial also denouncing the legislation as dangerous, not only to Missouri’s largest cities but also to its smallest communities.
“No two communities face identical challenges, therefore, the state government should not be taking a one size fits all approach to issues that can and should be addressed at the local level,” she wrote. “We know what it takes to run our farms, businesses, and families. Yet, once again, politicians in Jefferson City and the big special interests that finance their campaigns are trying to take away our right to make choices for ourselves.”
Molly Fleming works at the Kansas City branch for Missouri Jobs with Justice, an organization seeking to raise the minimum wage around the state. She also acts as a community organizer for a variety of other causes. Fleming, and many members of the city council, fear this legislation could have drastic consequences, even if they are unintended.
For example, she said that a potential victim of domestic violence working in a low wage job may not be able to have added benefits of taking days off granted by the municipality to go to court to seek a restraining order against their abusers if a state law does not exist to grant such protections. For her, the issue goes far beyond just the minimum wage increases.
“If we narrow this issue, we are missing the bulk of how this issue is affecting families and municipalities,” she said. “A court could really broadly interpret this legislation. It’s a slippery slope. What this decision does is take a much more sweeping attempt to take away local control.”
Those problems with the legislation raise a lot of concerns with Councilman Kevin McManus.
“While I respect the work of our officials in Jefferson City, this bill is too vague, and I don’t want to risk being prevented from making common-sense reforms to help Kansas Citians, because of a poorly written bill,” he said.
However, what is most frustrating to Fleming is that the legislation reads more as a political power play by a Republican majority, one which is largely opposed to minimum wage increases.
“It’s purely for political reasons,” Fleming said. “It is very interesting that the exact arguments the legislature has made against federal regulations on the state of the Missouri contradict what the state government is doing on local control.”
She cited Sen. Eric Schmitt’s recent announcement of divestment from companies that do business with Iran. She believes Schmitt’s concerns about the federal government intervening with state governments has merit when discussing Missouri’s General Assembly interfering in the business of individual cities.
The bill is expected to be brought up during next week’s veto session.
Update, 5:15 p.m.: The Kansas City Council did in fact pass the resolution unanimously. Also revised a portion of the story where Fleming said she supported Schmitt’s divestment from companies divestment with Iran. She clarified later that she supported his argument’s stipulations about local control.
