Post-Emption and the Mayoral Toolbox: Levers and Limits of City Resistance to State Preemption

States increasingly deploy aggressive preemption measures against disfavored localities. Scholars have raised the alarm, but cities’ subordinate legal status leaves them disempowered. To push back, municipal advocates need to thoroughly under- stand the complex bilateral relationship between cities and their states. That is where I come in. As mayor of a progressive city in a conservative state, I swim in the hostile symbiosis that characterizes city-state relations. By drawing on real-life examples, closed-door conversations, and previously private documents, my coauthor and I demonstrate the potence of multipronged city power. We synthesize our stories into a thicker account of state motivation and then showcase the city’s “toolbox” for limiting state preemption. That process unearths preemption’s next frontier. Postenactment state preemption, or “postemption,” occurs when a state retroactively nullifies a specific, already passed municipal law. It has been widely acknowledged but not individually distinguished. Analyzing it independently reveals that it is already ubiquitous and likely to proliferate. Post-emption thus warrants individualized normative assessment, and this Essay begins that surprisingly nuanced discussion.