Home Rule
by Gianmarco Katz
What’s the Problem?
Local governments should have the power to craft policies that respond to their community’s needs. Yet across the country, state legislatures are stripping localities of that power. Through the legal doctrine of preemption (also known as Dillon’s Rule), state lawmakers — influenced by corporate lobbyists and right-wing organizations — are blocking cities and counties from solving social problems in order to secure their bottom line. Of course, not all preemption is harmful. For example, “floor” preemption sets a statewide baseline that localities can build on, such as a minimum wage law that allows cities to set higher local wages. But “ceiling” preemption prevents local governments from exceeding state standards. Increasingly, conservative-led legislatures have weaponized this type to prevent progressive local action on paid sick leave, rent control, broadband access, policing reforms, and even environmental protections.
This wave of preemption is not organic; it is often fueled by national industry groups like ALEC, whose model bills have enabled corporate interests to override local democratic decisions. After Miami-Dade County recovered over $500,000 in stolen wages through anti-wage theft laws, business groups lobbied the Florida Legislature to gut local enforcement — and in 2019, they succeeded. Today, preemption is surging– more than 115 state laws limiting local worker protections passed between 2011 and 2019, compared to just 15 laws between 1984 and 2010. And this trend has intensified as MAGA-aligned legislatures seek to punish progressive cities — blocking local safety measures, limiting local control over budgets, and even banning cities from enforcing nondiscrimination ordinances.
Despite these challenges, local leaders are not powerless. They can mount legal, political, and policy-based challenges to state interference. Even when municipalities are blocked from legislating, they can still build high road, values-based systems through procurement, planning, and cross-sector coalitions.
What Are People Currently Doing?
Cities and counties are pushing back against preemption with legal challenges, strategic workarounds, and political organizing. The most direct strategy they can use is to lobby state legislators, voters across the state, and their own constituents to repeal or amend existing preemption laws, provide room for local leeway, or enact the desired local policy statewide. In Colorado, grassroots pressure helped overturn statewide bans on local minimum wage laws (HB-1210) and local tobacco regulation (HB 19-1033). The National League of Cities has proposed a model state constitutional amendment to enshrine home rule protections — and conducted a state by state analysis of preemption laws to guide local officials on key issues.
Messaging also matters. Groups like the Mayors Innovation Project and Grassroots Change have created playbooks for how to talk about preemption in values-based language — centering local democracy, community voice, and fairness. These tools help local officials and organizers build broad coalitions, not just across jurisdictions but across issues. Preemption affects everything from workers’ rights to climate policy, from gun control to public health, positioning it as a key issue to unify disparate movements.
Local governments must also coordinate regionally to align policy goals and defend residents from harmful preemption. Ohio Mayors Alliance, for example, is a coalition of mayors that have joined forces to advocate for local control and the preservation of home rule. Additionally, state-based coalitions are gaining traction. Texas’s Coalition Against State Interference (CASI) — which include groups like Workers Defense Project and Planned Parenthood Texas Votes — has beaten back bills that would preempt fair scheduling laws, local sick leave, “ban the box” policies, and more. In Wisconsin, Madison’s shared service agreements and Pierce County’s regional water planning show how local governments can meet community needs through intergovernmental collaboration, even when legislative options are constrained (see ProGov21’s Regional Coordination roadmap for more).
In addition, legal victories are possible. In Pittsburgh, the state Supreme Court reinstated the city’s paid sick leave ordinance in 2019, striking down Pennsylvania’s preemption claim. New America’s legal guides offer arguments for cities seeking to challenge state overreach in court — and outline how to build legal records that can withstand state pushback. In 2019, Colorado became the first state to repeal a local minimum wage preemption law, marking a major victory for local democracy and workers' rights, thanks to advocacy led by groups like the National Employment Law Project and the Local Solutions Support Center — two organizations that are equipping local leaders and organizers with legal tools, model policies, and strategic support to resist corporate-driven preemption and defend working families.
At the same time, local governments pursue direct challenges. They can “push the limits” of preemption laws and draft policies that narrowly fit alongside state legislation and incentivize high road practices. Some cities are taking bold steps within narrow legal boundaries — using zoning, building codes, permitting, and project-specific agreements to indirectly influence wages, safety, hiring, or housing. Oakland’s first-source hiring policies reserve a share of publicly funded jobs for local and disadvantaged workers, and New Brunswick, Princeton, and Seattle bar firms that violate labor laws from obtaining licenses outright.
At the same time, Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) tie public investment to specific community goals — like local hiring, wage standards, or affordable housing. These agreements are less likely to be preempted because they are contracts and are therefore negotiated between private entities and community groups with public facilitation. Milwaukee’s Deer District CBA guaranteed a cost-of-living wage floor and required local hiring on a major redevelopment project, advancing labor equity even in a state hostile to local labor laws (for more on CBAs, see ProGov21’s Job Quality roadmap).
Ultimately, preemption is about power — who holds it and who gets to govern. While state laws can block local action, they cannot stop local organizing or values-driven governance. Every ordinance, zoning code, and contract is a chance to assert local priorities. By coordinating regionally, reframing the narrative, and investing in long-term coalition-building, local leaders can erode the legitimacy of preemption and build durable democratic power from the ground up.
Taking it to the Next Level
The fact remains that localities still hold power, especially in how they govern and organize. As market actors, municipalities have the freedom to spend in line with their values. However, government procurement officers typically pay attention to only the price of the service or product offered by vendors. Municipalities can and should establish procurement strategies to incentivize behavior in areas where state preemption prevents them from acting directly.
Local governments can also favor vendors that uphold values, local initiatives, and fair labor by scaling their impact through cooperative purchasing and shared vendor standards. Houston’s Build Up Houston initiative trains small, local contractors to access city procurement, thereby turning public contracting into a tool for equitable economic growth. Meanwhile, cities like Cincinnati and Cleveland bar companies with a history of wage theft from public contracts — ensuring public dollars do not reward exploitative employers, even in states hostile to labor protections. The more procurement is governed by high road policies, the more effectively localities can achieve goals that they are preempted from legislating (see ProGov21’s Procurement roadmap for more).
Allies, Advocates, and Advisors
Mayors Innovation Project, our sister organization, is a national learning network for mayors committed to shared prosperity, environmental sustainability, and efficient democratic government.