Despite winning the last two presidential elections, Democrats are in serious trouble at just about every other level of government. Currently, Republicans control both chambers in 30 state legislatures – the most since the 1920s – while Democrats enjoy the same majority in only 11 states. As a result of this dominance, GOP-controlled state legislatures have passed sweeping agendas filled with conservative legislation in states across the country. But while their legislative successes have received widespread coverage, the tension that has arisen between state and municipal governments has not seen the same level of attention. Over the past few years, state governments have successfully overruled municipalities on a host of classic partisan issues, eroding the limited self-rule of cities and exposing a contradiction over conservatives supposed “small government” philosophy.
While municipal and state governments often have had different priorities, in recent years increased political polarization has exacerbated the problem. Just as Republicans were busy taking over statehouse after statehouse, the nation’s major cities grew more Democratic in turn. As a result, power struggles between Republicans and Democrats now frequently take the form of clashes between state and municipal governments. The red state, blue state model that makes sense in presidential elections masks political diversity within states. Salt Lake City, for example, is a liberal bastion in deep-red Utah, and even boasts one of the nation’s highest proportions of LGBTQ+ citizens. The result is that the nation’s major urban areas, even in traditionally conservative regions, are increasingly Democratic strongholds.
Disputes typically arise from the nature of the relationship between state and local governments. While under federalism both the state and federal governments are sovereign, local governments don’t enjoy any rights except those given to them by state constitutions. As of now, 44 states provide for some degree of home rule for municipalities, but overall, the situation is complex and varies widely across the country. Often, the legislature can simply override a municipal decision with few legal obstacles, since the municipality’s authority is granted by the state in the first place. President Obama can’t override a law passed by the Wisconsin Legislature, but Governor Scott Walker and his Republican allies in the Wisconsin Legislature have more substantial control over Milwaukee’s affairs.
And they have not been reluctant to exercise that power. In 2008, Milwaukee voters overwhelmingly approved an ordinance guaranteeing paid sick leave. After the ordinance survived legal challenges, in 2011, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law which effectively overturned it. While the law ostensibly applied to every city in Wisconsin, it was clearly intended to target heavily-Democratic Milwaukee – the only city with a paid sick leave law on the books.
North Carolina’s controversial HB2, the so-called bathroom bill, is another prominent example of state legislative supremacy in action. While the discriminatory bathroom provisions of HB2 attracted lots of media attention, the bill was passed specifically to nullify an ordinance in Charlotte that allowed transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. HB2 went even further than that, however, and barred municipalities from enacting a wide variety of local laws.
States often justify such legislation as necessary to guard against a confusing patchwork of laws and regulations, ensuring, for example, that the laws in Charlotte and Raleigh maintain a degree of similarity. While there’s no doubt that uniform standards are desirable, it’s similarly obvious that the legislatures are fighting proxy wars over issues that divide the two major parties. Along with HB2, North Carolina’s Republican legislature has passed many laws that lack even the pretense of “standardizing regulations.” One such bill restructured the Guilford County school board, eliminating at-large positions and redrawing districts in an attempt to improve Republican fortunes in a county that supported President Obama’s reelection by a healthy margin. Another similar law attempted to strip Charlotte’s control over its own airport – a move widely perceived as an attempt to eliminate the Democratic local government’s authority over one of its most important assets. In each instance, the state legislature was willing to ignore the principles of local control to further its own political agenda or punish political opposition.
It’s no coincidence that instances of state preemption have skyrocketed in recent years: The trend is the result of the combination of a concerted campaign on the part of state legislators and the Republicans’ recent victories. The Wisconsin sick leave bill is remarkably similar to legislation passed in 11 other states, all of which followed a model proposed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization of state legislators and corporate representatives that drafts “cookie-cutter” bills, which can be used in multiple states. According to its website, the ALEC is “dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism,” and the institution has facilitated Republican legislatures’ campaigns against Democratic cities on issues like guns, tobacco, sanctuary cities, and pesticides.
Unsurprisingly, municipal officials feel disenfranchised in the face of this conservative legislative onslaught. Malapportionment and gerrymandering in some states mean that urban voters are underrepresented relative to their rural and suburban counterparts. North Carolina’s legislature is dominated by Republicans even though Democratic candidates have actually won more votes in recent elections – a classic outcome of redrawing districts based on partisan politics.
The fights between cities and states aren’t a recent phenomenon either, although the increasing polarization of statehouses and municipal governments makes it more noticeable. And it doesn’t always have to be partisan in nature; New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, have feuded quite a bit. The most notable development, however, is that the turf wars between cities and states have increasingly become proxies for the major parties’ biggest clashes, as political stagnation in Washington frustrates their agendas.
In a sense, conflict between state governments and municipalities is unavoidable given the nature of American democracy and its varying tiers of government. The problem arises from the varying and often confusing state laws regarding municipal power. One way to ease the stress between statehouses and city halls would be to implement equitable models of legislative representation that would guarantee cities proportionate state-level representation.
Of course, in a pluralistic nation it will never be possible to devise a system of government that avoids friction between people with different ideas. Just as San Franciscans must ultimately make peace with the fact that they share a nation with the far more conservative citizens of Tulsa, so too must the people of Philadelphia accept their union with the farmers and coalminers of central Pennsylvania. In many ways, the various levels of government offer healthy opportunities for partisan competition and experimentation, features that safeguard American democracy.
But the intense political fights of recent years also suggest that the statutes governing the relationship between state and local government are due for an update. Increased autonomy for cities, like establishing more robust home-rule policies in the states that lack them, could reduce the number of costly battles between states and cities and ensure that municipal officials don’t feel tyrannized by an overbearing statehouse. Both parties could find something to like in such an arrangement. A little competition is healthy for democracy, but the increasing acrimony in recent years suggests that it’s time for a new rulebook.