Case Study 2 — State Preemption Fights, 2010s–2020s

The setting

Most American Government textbooks teach federalism as a relationship between the federal government and the states. The chapter has argued that a parallel relationship runs one level down: states preempt their cities, counties, and other local governments. The doctrine is Dillon's Rule. The political reality is that, in the past fifteen years, this state-versus-locality preemption fight has become one of the most active arenas in American politics — and one of the clearest illustrations of how partisan politics adapts to whichever level of government a party currently controls.

This case study walks through four examples of state preemption from the 2010s and 2020s, deliberately drawn to span partisan directions. The argument is not that one party preempts more, or that preemption is uniquely problematic when one party does it. The argument is that preemption is a power both partisan camps use when they hold state government, and that the institutional logic is the same regardless of which side currently has the gavel.

Example 1 — Florida and Missouri preempt local minimum-wage increases

Through the 2010s, a number of cities — including Birmingham (Alabama), St. Louis and Kansas City (Missouri), and several Florida municipalities — passed local minimum-wage ordinances above the state floor. State legislatures, in each case, responded by passing preemption statutes prohibiting local governments from setting minimum wages above the state level.

Alabama's preemption (2016) struck down Birmingham's local $10.10 minimum wage. Birmingham had enacted the increase in 2015. The Alabama legislature, controlled by Republicans, passed HB 174 in February 2016 — a "uniform minimum wage and right-to-work act" that prohibited municipalities from setting minimum wages or any other employment standards above the state minimum (which was the federal $7.25). The local ordinance never took effect.

Missouri's preemption (2017) struck down St. Louis's local minimum wage of $10/hour and a similar Kansas City increase. The Missouri General Assembly, controlled by Republicans, passed HB 1194 in 2017, preempting local minimum-wage ordinances. Missouri voters then complicated the picture: in 2018, they approved Proposition B at the ballot, raising the *state* minimum wage to $12 by 2023. The result is that Missouri now has a statewide minimum wage above the state's pre-preemption local levels, but cities cannot set their own higher floors.

Florida's preemption (multiple, ongoing) has involved both minimum-wage rules and broader employment regulation. Florida ballot initiatives have raised the state minimum wage (Amendment 2 of 2020 phased in $15/hour by 2026), so the policy debate is more complex than in Alabama or Missouri, but the underlying preemption principle — local governments cannot exceed state standards on employment — remains.

The institutional logic in all three cases is the same: a state legislature, holding constitutional authority over its political subdivisions under Dillon's Rule, exercises that authority to prevent local governments from imposing employer regulations the state does not want imposed. The political logic is that the state-controlling party has interests at stake — small business, broader chamber-of-commerce constituencies, statewide consistency — that cut against the cities' preferences.

The chapter is honest that the empirical effect of local minimum-wage variation is contested. Some economists argue that local minimum wages above state floors produce employment effects in low-wage labor markets; others argue that the effects are small or non-existent. Both views have substantial empirical literature. The preemption fight is, in part, a fight about which level of government should make the trade-off.

Example 2 — Gun preemption: state legislatures preempting local firearm ordinances

State preemption of local firearm regulation has the longest history of any modern preemption category. Most states have firearm-preemption statutes; the pattern goes back to the 1970s in some jurisdictions and accelerated in the late 1990s.

Pennsylvania has had a state firearm-preemption statute since 1995, holding that "no county, municipality, or township may in any manner regulate the lawful ownership, possession, transfer, or transportation of firearms." Philadelphia, which has its own gun-violence problem and has periodically attempted local firearm regulation, has been blocked by the preemption statute. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the preemption against local-control challenges. In 2024, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh prevailed on a narrow procedural challenge in Crawford v. Commonwealth, but the substantive preemption framework remains in place.

Florida's firearm preemption (1987, expanded 2011) is among the strongest in the country. The 2011 expansion (HB 45) imposed personal civil and criminal penalties on local officials who attempt to enact firearm regulations beyond state law. The penalties — including potential removal from office and personal fines up to $5,000 — are unique among preemption statutes for their direct targeting of local elected officials. Several Florida municipalities challenged the personal-penalty provisions; in 2021 a state appellate court struck down the personal penalties, while leaving the broader preemption intact.

Mississippi's firearm preemption (since 2014) prohibits local ordinances on firearm possession, purchase, registration, transfer, transportation, or display. Numerous similar statutes exist in other states.

The political logic of gun preemption is symmetric across the country: state-level Republican legislatures see local firearm regulations as inconsistent with the Second Amendment as understood in Heller (2008) and Bruen (2022) and as undermining a uniform statewide policy framework. Local governments — typically in larger cities, often Democratic-controlled — see local conditions (gun violence, dense population, specific vector problems like ghost guns or large-capacity magazines) as warranting local regulation.

The empirical question of whether local firearm regulation reduces gun violence is contested. The political question of whether the state legislature or the city council should make the decision is the preemption fight, and the state legislatures have largely won.

Example 3 — Texas SB 4 and the sanctuary preemption fight

In 2017, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 4, which prohibited Texas localities from adopting "sanctuary" policies limiting local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The bill required local jails to honor federal immigration detainers; required local law-enforcement agencies to permit officers to inquire into the immigration status of persons lawfully detained or arrested; and imposed civil and criminal penalties on local officials who limited cooperation.

Travis County (Austin), Bexar County (San Antonio), El Paso, and the City of Houston challenged the law in federal court. The Fifth Circuit ultimately upheld most of SB 4's provisions in City of El Cenizo v. Texas (2018), with a partial preliminary injunction on a narrow speech-related provision later resolved.

SB 4 illustrates the same logic at a different policy domain. Texas, controlled by Republicans, asserted state authority over its localities to require uniform cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Austin, San Antonio, and Houston — Democratic-leaning municipalities — argued that local law-enforcement priorities, community trust, and resource constraints made limited cooperation with federal immigration enforcement appropriate at the local level.

Subsequent legislation (SB 11 in 2023, restricting universities' DEI offices; HB 9 in 2023, restricting some local prosecutorial discretion; and a series of other measures) has extended the Texas preemption framework into adjacent areas. Florida adopted similar sanctuary-preemption legislation in 2019. The Trump administration's renewed federal-immigration-enforcement push since January 2025 has made the local-versus-state-versus-federal jurisdictional alignment a recurring flashpoint.

Example 4 — Blue-state preemption: Colorado, Oregon, and others preempt local opposition to state policy

Preemption is not solely a Republican-state-on-Democratic-city dynamic. Several Democratic-controlled state legislatures have used preemption against more conservative localities, though the pattern is less commonly discussed in national media.

Colorado preempted local opposition to oil-and-gas drilling regulation in City of Longmont v. Colorado Oil and Gas Association (2016), in which the Colorado Supreme Court struck down Longmont's local ban on hydraulic fracturing as preempted by state oil-and-gas law. (Subsequent legislation, SB 19-181, returned more authority to local governments — illustrating that preemption can be reversed by the legislature that imposed it.)

Colorado has also preempted some localities on rent-control rules (the Colorado Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Town of Telluride v. Lot Thirty-Four Venture held local rent control preempted by state law; the legislature partially reversed this in HB 24-1098 in 2024, returning some local authority).

Oregon's preemption of local prohibitions on homeless shelters and campsite regulations has been periodically contested as the state legislature has navigated between cities that want stricter rules and cities that want laxer rules.

New York's preemption of New York City on certain transportation and labor issues is a recurring source of city-state tension. The state legislature has, on multiple occasions, blocked or modified New York City policies on Uber regulation, congestion pricing, and other issues.

Washington State preempted local firearm regulations through I-1639 (2018) and other measures, though the Washington political alignment cuts more variably.

The blue-state preemption is real but, the chapter has noted, less symmetric in volume than red-state preemption — partly because state-Democratic-controlled legislatures hold fewer states than state-Republican-controlled ones, and partly because the kinds of issues that motivate preemption (firearms, immigration, employment regulation) more often involve red-state legislatures preempting blue cities. The asymmetry is empirical; the chapter does not pretend it is symmetric. But the principle — that whichever party holds state government uses preemption against localities — is consistent across the cases.

What preemption fights show about American government

Dillon's Rule is constitutional architecture, not policy preference. The state-locality relationship is structurally asymmetric. State legislatures hold the constitutional authority to preempt; cities, counties, and special districts do not. The party that holds the state legislature gets to use that authority. The party that holds the city does not have a counterpart authority over the state.

Preemption is path-dependent. Once a preemption framework is in place, it tends to persist. Reversing preemption requires the same legislature that imposed it (or a later one) to undo it. Cities cannot, by themselves, escape the preemption.

Preemption is bipartisan in pattern but asymmetric in volume. Both parties use preemption when they hold state legislatures. The volume of red-state preemption of blue cities has been larger in the 2010s and 2020s than the volume of blue-state preemption of red localities, partly reflecting the partisan distribution of state government control. The chapter is honest about this without making either side the villain.

Preemption fights are not going away. As long as cities lean Democratic and rural areas lean Republican (the post-2008 alignment is durable), state-level Republican governments will face Democratic cities, and state-level Democratic governments will face conservative outer-suburban and rural counties. The preemption mechanism is the institutional tool through which that disagreement plays out.

The chapter's framing is the right one: preemption is a power that both partisan camps use when they hold state government. The constitutional logic is the same. The values cut differently. Honest political analysis recognizes both.