Earlier this year, voters in St. Louis raised the minimum wage to $10 an hour. It was short of the $15 goal that many areas have set for workers, but it marked a nearly 25 percent increase in wages for many St. Louis workers. Until Republicans gave them a pay cut.
And Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens agrees. Next month, the minimum wage will return to $7.70 an hour -- ten bucks an hour was a mistake, he says. …
In St. Louis, the minimum wage was going to increase to $11 an hour in January. Now, that won't happen. And by one estimate, 38,000 workers could miss out on a raise.
St. Louis and Kansas City, a pair of blue cities at the edges of a red state that seems intent in replicating or surpassing every aspect of the disaster in Kansas, are routinely undercut by actions at the state legislature, where rural Republicans look on the two largest cities in their state as too liberal and way, way too black. But Missouri is certainly not unique. As Republicans capture and hold ever more elaborately gerrymandered districts to dominate state legislatures even in states where they capture a minority of votes, they’re working hard to cripple their own cities.
In the last few years, Republican-controlled state legislatures have intensified the use of what are known as pre-emption laws, to block towns and cities from adopting measures favored by the left. The states aren’t merely overruling local laws; they’ve walled off whole new realms where local governments aren’t allowed to govern at all.
The theory behind why state governments should have control over areas traditionally left to localities is … screw it. There is no theory. It’s because that’s where Republicans have control.
As standoffs between red states and blue cities grow more rancorous, the tactics of pre-emption laws have become personal and punitive: Several states are now threatening to withhold resources from communities that defy them and to hold their elected officials legally and financially liable.
Just as Trump has threatened to punish cities that refuse to surrender to his policies on immigrants by instead following processes that have proven to generate improved public health and safety, Republicans in state houses are ready to strangle their own cities—even though the cities generate most of the jobs, and most of the tax revenue, that funds the governments they supposedly serve.
North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” was exactly such a pre emption law, created expressly to force the people of more progressive Charlotte to live with the morals of their most conservative neighbors.
States have banned local ordinances on minimum wage increases, paid sick days and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. They’ve banned “sanctuary cities.” They’ve even banned a number of bans (it’s now illegal for Michigan cities to ban plastic bags, for Texas towns to ban fracking).
And increasingly states are writing these laws so that it’s illegal for local politicians to even propose a law in opposition. They’re literally making it illegal to oppose Republican positions.
“There are all sorts of legitimate ways we can divide power,” said Nestor Davidson, a law professor at Fordham. But if local officials risk personal fines, lawsuits and lost wealth for their communities over policy disagreements, he said, that changes the rules of the game. “That has the potential to change what it means to be a government official, to change what it means to elect people.”
Republicans are working to make it illegal to not support Republican policies, seizing control of local functions, and making it impossible for cities to function unless they get on their knees to Republicans.
A law passed in Arizona last year threatens to withhold shared state revenue from local governments that adopt ordinances in conflict with state policy. Texas’ new sanctuary city law imposes civil fines as high as $25,500 a day on local governments and officials who block cooperation with federal immigration requests. And it threatens officials who flout the law with removal from office and misdemeanor charges.
By taking control of the cities, state-level Republicans directly take power away from Democratic-leaning cities, Republicans are damaging job programs, education policy, and infrastructure. The rule changes being made now are similar to those made during the Civil War when slave-holding states, like Missouri, passed rules that are still in effect to punish abolitionist-leaning cities, like St. Louis. Republicans are increasingly pushing the idea that not only do states have rights that exceed that of the federal government, but that the states are supreme—sovereign—over all local ordinances.
In the 1990s, the National Rifle Association followed the same state strategy with gun-control laws. More recently, the industry-backed American Legislative Exchange Council, which advocates free-market state policies, has promoted model state legislation preventing local governments from adopting what it considers a patchwork of regulatory burdens on businesses.
While Democrats are working to address the problem, the increasing pressure from state governments, like the Republican takeover of those governments, is a story that generates little national attention.
“It is about power, and I think it’s about wielding power at any cost. That’s it,” said Andrew Gillum, the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, Fla., who formed a national group to fight pre-emption laws this year. Now that Republicans control both legislative chambers in 32 states and the governor’s office on top of that in 25, he said, their slogans lionizing local government ring hollow. “They only mean that,” Mr. Gillum said, “to the extent that they’re in control.” ...
The new punitive nature of pre-emptions, though, has escalated the fight beyond the usual partisan bickering. “It’s intended to send a chilling effect,” said Mr. Gillum, the Tallahassee mayor.
In Florida, local officials who run afoul of the state’s pre-emption on gun control are personally liable in court. Mr. Gillum and other city commissioners were sued by gun-rights groups over an old ordinance the city never repealed — but that no longer had effect — making it illegal to shoot guns in public parks. An appellate court rejected the lawsuit, but Mr. Gillum and other local officials had to defend themselves without public money (they were able to get pro bono legal help).
Florida law, like that passed in many states under models from ALEC, not only sets local officials up to be sued simply for enforcing existing laws, it also forbids their local governments from assisting them in any way. That’s the Republican idea of law and order—they get to pick the laws that can be enforced, and get to ruin anyone who stands in their way.