The reversal reflected a growing struggle over the use of ballot measures to answer policy questions in Republican-led states.

Eight months after voters approved it, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed the repeal of a law Thursday that had guaranteed paid sick leave to workers and inflationary adjustments to the minimum wage. The move marked a major victory for the state's largest business group and a frustrating defeat for workers' rights advocates,

The state's minimum wage, which voters approved increasing at the same time as the paid sick leave provision, also will no longer rise with inflation.