Businesses are increasingly appealing to state lawmakers to pass laws that prevent local governments from enacting local regulations.
David Lieb reports that one Missouri bill, for instance, would bar local ordinances requiring businesses to provide a "living wage" along with certain benefits like paid sick leave, vacation, health, disability and retirement.
The tactic isn't entirely new, but it has been employed with increasing frequency since Republicans really began dominating state governments.
Some experts trace a rise in states pre-empting local ordinances to the 2010 elections, when Republicans won control of 25 legislatures and 29 governors' offices. Republicans have expanded their power since then and now hold complete control of three times as many legislatures and governors' offices as Democrats...
"The fights over economic policy have overwhelmingly shifted to the states" away from the federal government, said Gordon Lafer, a political scientist at the University of Oregon who studies state labor laws. He added: "There's kind of a race going on, which is can local ordinances be passed faster than influence at the state level can pre-empt them?"...
Nationally, the restaurant industry also has backed state efforts to pre-empt local wage-and-benefits mandates. At one national meeting of conservative state lawmakers, a restaurant association executive circulated model legislation based on a 2011 Wisconsin law that pre-empted a Milwaukee ordinance.
Unsurprisingly, the article also finds a correlation between the legislative interests of certain industries and the candidates to whom entities associated with those interests donate.
If ever there were an argument for why it's important to turn out at every election—local, state, and congressional—especially in the off years, this is one of them.