2025 Legislative Session Overview – Blueprint for Autocracy: How State Preemption is Fueling Destructive & Discriminatory Policy Trends
State lawmakers pushed more than 800 abusive preemption bills across 48 states this year. Many of the preemption hotspots the LSSC team tracked - from immigration to anti-DEI efforts - align with the Trump administration’s rhetoric. In fact, it’s impossible to tell the story of preemption in 2025 without considering the impact of the new administration on policy making and people.
Some of the key takeaways from LSSC's new report, Blueprint for Autocracy: How State Preemption is Fueling Destructive & Discriminatory Policy Trends, include:
A 900 percent increase in anti-immigration preemption bills filed this year. Lawmakers across the country introduced more than 100 hostile bills - compared to just 11 last year.
Lawmakers continue to pursue anti-LGBTQ+ preemption bills; and the bills are becoming increasingly punitive. This year, we tracked bills that even proposed litigation against school officials who simply affirmed LGBTQ+ youth in schools by acknowledging their pronouns and the way they chose to dress or style their hair.
A rise in preemption measures rolling back commonsense public health policies - a trend we expect to continue next year. A number of states advanced bills seeking to remove fluoride from drinking water - a public health catastrophe in the making that lawmakers in Florida and Utah enacted into law.
Lawmakers are turning to preemption to weaken access to elections as we head toward next year’s midterms. Four states this year banned ranked choice voting, while a number of other states advanced bills seeking to restrict early voting periods and limit when absentee ballots must be received in order to count.