http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312766-gop-aims-to-rein-in-liberal-cities
[ALEC activity.]
GOP aims to rein in liberal cities
By Reid Wilson - 01/05/17 06:00 AM EST
After consolidating power in Washington, D.C., and state capitals under
President-elect Donald Trump, Republicans are moving to prevent large
cities dominated by Democrats from enacting sweeping liberal agendas.
Republican state legislatures are planning so-called preemption laws,
which prevent cities and counties from passing new measures governing
everything from taxes to environmental regulations and social issues.
Republican legislators around the country say liberal cities and
counties vastly overstepped their bounds by implementing new taxes on
sodas and sugary beverages, by raising local minimum wages or through
strict new environmental regulations.
“What we see is circumventing the process that’s in place,” said Linda
Upmeyer, the Republican speaker of the Iowa state House. “I think we
will likely look at language on preemption so that the state is making
decisions where it ought to, and cities and counties are making
decisions where they should.”
Democrats and city officials, however, see the preemption laws as a
power grab aimed at limiting local governance in their party’s last
bastions of political power — which have become ground zero in the fight
to resist Trump.
Preemption laws are nothing new in American history. The Supremacy
Clause in the U.S. Constitution makes clear that federal law supersedes
state law, and similar clauses in state constitutions give state laws
precedence over local laws.
In recent decades, tobacco companies have used preemption laws to
overcome local smoking bans, and the National Rifle Association turned
to preemption to block cities from implementing new gun control measures.
But in the last four years, after Republicans swept to power in
legislatures across the country, the number of issues on which states
are asserting their rights has skyrocketed, said Mark Pertschuk,
director of the Oakland-based Grassroots Change, which keeps close tabs
on preemption legislation.
The tension has grown as cities experiment with measures to raise
revenue, keep their citizens healthy or add new protections for workers
— and as Republicans have won control of states where Democrats still
run large cities.
“In the past 10 to 15 years, cities have become the laboratories of
innovation,” said Brooks Rainwater, director of the Center for City
Solutions at the National League of Cities, which opposes local
preemption laws. “The discordant views of those at the local level and
those at the state level have led to some real challenges.”
The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council has offered five
sample preemption bills on everything from local minimum wage hikes to
rules governing genetically modified food and other agriculture products.
In just the last month, legislatures in Michigan and Wisconsin have
passed laws preempting local governments from banning plastic grocery
bags. In the last few years, courts have upheld the rights of Colorado
and Texas legislators to prevent municipalities from banning hydraulic
fracturing, also known as fracking, within their borders. Ohio is the
latest state to preempt local efforts to raise the minimum wage, after
Cleveland tried to boost wages for its lowest-paid workers.
Proponents of local control worry that with the incoming Trump
administration, even more power will bleed away from cities and
counties. The outgoing Obama administration sided with municipal
utilities in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C., when the utilities
wanted to expand access to broadband internet services beyond city
borders. Republican-led legislatures in both states blocked those
efforts, before the Federal Communications Commission stepped in.
Anticipating the number of measures likely to spring up in legislatures
in the coming months, Pertschuk added: “This is going to be the worst
year we’ve ever had.”
Even the controversial HB2 law, passed last year by North Carolina’s
Republican-controlled legislature, is a preemption law: It blocked the
city of Charlotte from enforcing anti-discrimination measures that were
stronger than statewide laws already on the books.
This year, measures similar to HB2, preempting local protections for
gays, lesbians and transgender people, have already been filed in states
like South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.
Legislators in other Republican-led states are likely to target
so-called sanctuary cities, which give shelter to undocumented
immigrants. Pennsylvania Republicans are likely to consider ways to
preempt a new tax on sodas and sugary beverages in Philadelphia. And
Virginia Republicans hope to reduce a municipality’s ability to play
favorites among developers.
“Localities are struggling for dollars,” Virginia state Sen. Bryce
Reeves (R) said. But, he added: “Those powers not directly enumerated
down to the counties, they can’t do. What you’ve seen is kind of an
overstepping of those bounds.”
At least some Republican-dominated states are considering what Pertschuk
calls “blanket preemption” laws, similar to a measure Arizona lawmakers
passed last year. That law would allow the state to cut off funding to
cities that refuse to give up laws that run counter to state law.
The city of Tucson is in the midst of a legal battle over a local gun
control measure that Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) says stands in
contrast to state law.
Some Democrats say preemption laws circumvent the will of voters in big
cities and represent hypocrisy from Republicans who cite the 10th
Amendment in fighting for states’ rights. But Republicans say most power
should rest with the states, rather than the federal government or
localities.
“The states created the federal government, not the other way around,”
said Keith Faber, an Ohio Republican state senator who sponsored the
minimum wage preemption law. “So when we talk about local control, we
mean state control.”