Miami-Dade and Broward counties would have their decades-old living wage ordinances repealed and local governments would be banned from enacting similar employment benefits under a bill passed Wednesday by a House committee.

The measure, HB 655, by Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando, would impose new limits on how contract employees are paid when they do work for local governments. It not only preempts the laws now in place in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, and in cities such as Orlando, Miami Beach and Gainesville, it would also ban Precourt's home county, Orange, from enacting a living wage proposal set to go before voters in 2014.

"Some counties like Miami-Dade are so large that their ordinances are really distorting the current economy and there is a need for uniformity,'' Precourt told the House Local and Federal Affairs Committee. He said the laws have suppressed the state's ability to generate jobs.

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