Most states across the South have no citizen initiative or referendum process of the kind California or Michigan readers know well. What Michigan and Florida voters also know (minimum wage and paid sick leave, and felons’ voting rights, respectively) is that Republicans believe government closest to the people serves the people best “only when they’re not the ones in control of the government,” writes Margaret Renkl for the New York Times opinion page.
The Republican-controlled legislature in Tennessee is gearing up to override municipal environmental legislation. Lawmakers are using spiking gasoline costs to justify trampling local control, Renkl explains:
Derived from the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, the doctrine of pre-emption allows a higher legal authority to override a law passed by a lower legal authority when the two are in conflict. It is deployed by both Republican and Democratic legislatures, though far more frequently by Republicans in the South, sometimes in unprecedented ways. Tennessee’s legislature uses pre-emption with abandon, even in cases where the state has no reasonable interest in the question. It’s the opposite of the Not In My Back Yard principle. Call it the To Hell With All Y’all Who Didn’t Vote For Me principle.
The infrastructure bill passed by the Tennessee Senate last week was expressly designed to respond to a grass-roots environmental effort that defeated a crude-oil pipeline in Memphis last year, as a report by WPLN News makes clear: “The Memphis situation alerted those folks in this industry to what could happen if planned projects … can be interrupted by municipalities somewhere along the way,” Kevin Vaughan, a Republican representative from Collierville, said during a subcommittee meeting.
[…]
In red states, here is what happens when blue cities pass regulations that Republican legislators disagree with: If Nashville passes a law designed to protect neighborhood homes from being turned into short-term rentals occupied by rotating hordes of drunk bridesmaids, the Tennessee General Assembly will introduce a bill that would make the city ordinance impossible to enforce. If the residents of Decatur, Ga., are considering a ban on gasoline-powered leaf blowers, the Georgia General Assembly will consider a bill that bans the banning of leaf blowers.
Preemption is the state equivalent of administrators allowing student council to play at democratic self-government until the principal disagrees with its choices.
The unpassed Tennessee bill has implications beyond the Volunteer State. Similar bills are in progress in North Carolina and Virginia according to the Climate Reality Project. What prompts their introduction is legislation passed at the local level that restrains business. Business interests are not having that. Freedom and small government closest to the people is only permissible when Republicans feel like allowing it.
The National League of Cities has an interactive map displaying where preemption laws have been passed to constrain local control.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.