A leading expert said tensions have never been higher between the different levels of government, thanks in part to preemptive legislation in various policy areas.

This article by Chris Teale appeared in Smart Cities Dive, July 2nd, 2018.

At a Washington, DC event in May, Harvard Kennedy School professor and former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith argued cities are “almost at war with their statehouse,” and that “cooperation between cities and their states is at an all-time low.”

The differences between city government and their counterparts in state houses have been well-documented, with many blaming ideological differences between traditionally conservative state legislators and more liberal city leaders. Others have said the divide between rural and urban legislators creates rancor in state houses.

But is the relationship at an all-time low? Goldsmith did not respond to repeated requests for further comment, but Mark Pertschuk, director at Grassroots Change, an organization that looks to empower grassroots movements and tracks states’ preemption of local control, believes it is.

Those concerns are shared by the National League of Cities (NLC), which, in a 2017 report, said states have become more aggressive in asserting preemption or their rights under Dillon’s Rule, which states that a local government can only act on something if it is specifically permitted to do so by the state.

“I don’t think that the Founding Fathers, it could have ever occurred to them that some idiot in the Arizona legislature or in the legislature in Texas would wholesale challenge local democracy,” Pertschuk said. “It just never occurred to them.” MORE…