This groundbreaking new framework lays out a vision for rebalancing state and local relations, and provides model constitutional language to encourage legal reform.
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This guide provides topline messages, best examples, and language do’s and don’ts to keep in mind when talking about HR21, or Principles for Home Rule in the 21st Century. The Principles call for a presumption of local authority and lay out a roadmap for strengthening local self-governance, local competence, and local fiscal stability.
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This December 2019 amicus brief in the case ‘State of Florida v. City of Weston, FL” deals with Florida and gun safety preemption.
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This white paper captures how defending local democracy now includes a growing focus on recovering lost local authority and summarizes key lessons learned so far in the fight to repeal existing preemption.
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This model ordinance from Local Maryland encourages local governments to pass laws that support healthy families, a clean environment and good jobs.
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This July 2019 amicus brief in the case ‘City of Austin v. Texas Association of Business’ deals with preemption of Austin’s paid sick leave policy.
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Localities can look at this New Orleans City Council resolution as a model for empowering local governments to set their own minimum wages and worker protection policies.
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This pathbreaking reader presents and analyzes in concise form the most important preemption statutes and cases, along with commentary from the leading scholars in the field.
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There is now an active anti-sanctuary movement aimed at eliminating the discretion that local communities have traditionally exercised over their involvement in the federal immigration enforcement efforts.
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This September 2020 amicus brief in the case ‘City of San Antonio & Marilyn Washington v. Associated Builders & Contractors of South Texas’ deals with preemption of San Antonio’s paid sick leave policy.
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This October 2018 amicus brief (by the Campaign to Defend Local Solutions) in the case ‘Cleveland v. Ohio’ deals with preemption of Clevaland’s local hire law.
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It is essential that state legislatures accurately represent the statewide public’s views when legislating with respect to local power. In too many states, highly gerrymandered state legislatures do not accurately represent the public’s views.
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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.
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This Article describes this politics by way of assessing the nature of—and reasons for—the hostility to city lawmaking. It also provides a current accounting of state preemptive legislation and assesses the cities’ potential legal and political defenses.
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This Essay examines the spread of the new preemption and explores the legal doctrines available to local governments for challenging it.
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This fact sheet details two straightforward approaches that can be pursued through ballot initiatives or statewide legislation to do so.
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One of the most troubling recent trends is the rise of “blanket” preemption in the states, described by the New York Times as efforts to “…[wall] off whole new realms where local governments aren’t allowed to govern at all.”
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A troubling trend has emerged where state legislators move to punish local legislators for supporting or voting for policies that state legislators oppose.
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This February 2017 amicus brief in the case ‘Pa. Rest. and Lodging Ass’n v. Pittsburgh’ deals with preemption of Pittsburgh’s paid sick leave policy.
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This Issue Brief surveys the landscape of state preemption and offers “possibilities for strengthening home rule to advance progressive local policymaking.”
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