Lt. Governor Peter Kinder

SENECA, Mo. — After his proposal to waive prevailing wage for state-funded housing projects in tornado stricken Joplin failed at the Missouri Housing Development Commission, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder is now supporting a similar push in the General Assembly.

Kinder joined local lawmakers near Joplin to announce his support of legislation pre-filed by State Rep. Bill Lant, R-Seneca, that would allow localities declared disaster zones to opt-out of the prevailing wage requirement for reconstruction of schools or local government buildings. Lant’s legislation, which requires majority support by the locality’s governing body, excludes the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Kinder said local lawmakers have presented a “united front” in support of the legislation, and hopes the effort gains traction and support from others.

“Governor [Jay] Nixon has said ‘whatever the people want, whatever people need,’ Kinder said. “Here’s what they need.”

Proponents of the requirement argue the wage rates are needed to ensure recovery workers maintain good financial standing, and contend that more money going in to worker’s pockets in a disaster area is a good thing for the recovering economy.

Kinder, reacting to the criticism, said “that’s not our charge.”

“Our charge is to work out for the taxpayer and the efficient, equitable use of taxpayer dollars,” he said in an interview PoliticMo.

Additionally, Kinder argued there is a “racist history of the prevailing wage statute,” saying that when the laws were first written, southern lawmakers supported them “in order to keep African Americans and other minorities out of the construction trades.”

These days, Kinder said he thinks the laws are used to “inflate the cost of labor at taxpayer expense.”

In an interview with PoliticMo earlier this month, Gov. Jay Nixon said he opposed legislation, like Lant’s, that would waive prevailing wage requirements in disaster zones.