State Government Preemption of Local Government Decisions Through the State Courts

摘要

What factors are associated with state government preemption of local government policies? This research asks whether state courts limit local authority in areas in which local preferences differ from the state's, and whether this is conditioned by the level of autonomy the state grants the local government. Using a newly constructed data set of 404 local governments that had local ordinances challenged in state courts between the years 1996 and 2017, we find that local governments with citizen ideological preferences that differ from the state are less likely to have an ordinance preempted by the courts when the level of local autonomy given by the state is high. Thus, institutions like home rule provide local governments with certain legal protections from challenges to local authority.