The Weapon of the State Legislature: The Impact of Hyper Preemption on Local Government Action

Hyper preemption laws in the United States have significantly changed the dynamics of state-local politics in recent decades, leading to a centralization of political power in state legislatures. After identifying 42 hyper preemption laws across 13 different policy areas, I investigate what factors explain the rise in these restrictive laws and detail their impact on local government autonomy. Through empirical analysis of non-institutional and institutional factors, I conclude that Republican control of the state legislature highly predicts whether a state has passed hyper preemption laws and the policy scope of those laws. These empirical findings suggest that non-institutional factors explain the passage and scope of hyper preemption, rather than more institutional factors. Across three case studies on hyper preemption, I also determine that Republican state legislatures use hyper preemption as a weapon against local governments, advancing their priorities at the expense of local government autonomy. These laws often establish debilitating punitive measures, target local officials, or preempt multiple policy areas, leaving local governments with little room to govern. Both my quantitative and qualitative findings show that hyper preemption remains a growing concern for local governments wishing to regulate and legislate on behalf of their citizenry.