The Supreme Court of Missouri [official website] ruled [opinion. PDF] Tuesday that the Kansas City Board of Commissioners [official website] must place a minimum wage proposal on the upcoming ballot. The proposed ordinance would set a minimum wage for the city above the minimum wage for the state, which violated a state statute. The court held that the state’s precedent does not prematurely preclude voters from voting on ballot initiatives that are potentially unconstitutional.

The City does not contend that the Committee failed to meet all of the procedural requirements imposed by the City Charter for putting a proposed ordinance before the City voters by initiative petition. The City does not challenge the form of the Committee’s petition, the sufficiency of the signatures gathered, the procedure used to submit the proposal to the City Council for its consideration, or the Committee’s election to place its proposal before the City voters rather than accept the alternative approved by the City Council. Because all of the Charter’s initiative petition provisions were followed (or, at least, because the City raised no challenges with respect to the Committee’s compliance with them), there is no basis on which a court may prohibit the City voters from considering the proposed minimum wage ordinance.

Minimum wage continues to be a controversial issue in the US. The US has not seen an increase [Reuters report] in federal minimum wage since 2009. In the absence of a federal increase, many states have responded by raising their own minimum wages. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington all approved minimum wage increase initiatives [JURIST report] in November, while South Dakota rejected a measure to lower the minimum wage. Last January 14 states approved [Reuters report] increases in minimum wage from an average of $8.50 an hour to a little over $9. However, some states still, technically, have no minimum wage at all. Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama have no state minimum wage legislation [NCSL fact sheet] beyond the $7.25 per hour mandated by the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 [LOC backgrounder], Congress’ most recent legislative act on the minimum wage.