“Preempting LGBTQ+ Rights: How States Undermine Local Leadership and Innovation on LGBTQ+ Equality,” is a 2026 update of a previous report, published as a partnership between A Better Balance, Equality Federation, and the Local Solutions Support Center.

This white paper tells the powerful and timely story of how abusive preemption has paved the way for the rise of federal authoritarianism – and how preemption is now being used to implement that agenda.

A new white paper from Local Progress and Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC), Driving Toward Equitable Traffic Enforcement, offers local advocates and policymakers a roadmap for advancing traffic safety policies that promote driving equity - while highlighting preemption-related concerns to keep in mind.  

Rick Su, Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, has written a new white paper for LSSC that charts the growth and evolution of immigration-related preemption measures in recent years.

A new white paper by Richard Briffault for Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC), Preemption of Local Election Administration, looks at how legislatures are working to advance abusive preemption measures designed to burden LEOs and limit their ability to promote democracy.

This paper is a brief update to our earlier white paper, “Preempting Progress: States Take Aim at Local Prosecutors,” cataloging attempts to curtail the discretion of local prosecutors. In this update, we also address successful efforts to push back against the efforts to strip power from local prosecutors and the communities that elected them.

In a new paper from Local Solutions Support Center, Curricular Preemption: The New Front of an Old Culture War, we discuss the growing trend of curricular preemption and its impact on local school districts.

Preempting Progress: States Take Aim at Local Prosecutors examines how as local communities have called on prosecutors to use their discretion to embrace reform and a less carceral approach to criminal justice, states have intervened in an attempt to force prosecutors to continue tough-on-crime policies.

Some states have begun to use preemption to force localities to criminalize camping in public, taking local resources away from proven solutions that could address the root causes of homelessness. Rather than solve the crisis, this preemption exacerbates it by punishing people who can find shelter nowhere else.

As part of the Local Solutions Support Center’s ongoing efforts to help local leaders understand and deploy their authority to address their communities’ needs, we have produced this memo outlining what local election administration involves and how it threatens democracy.

A new white paper from LSSC explores in more detail how some state legislatures are using preemption to undermine local control of police budgeting, accountability, and management.

The unfortunate result of this burgeoning legislative movement to adopt statue statutes and other punitive preemption measures has been the erosion of local democracy, the stifling of local political innovation, and the undermining of local faith in the democratic process.

All preemption laws are in tension with local democracy, but punitive preemption is especially threatening. Many state preemption laws are vague around the edges; some may violate the state’s constitution or legal doctrines.