Legal Resources

By the middle of the 2026 legislative session, Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC) tracked nearly 850 abusive preemption bills across states currently in legislative session.

This white paper tells the powerful and timely story of how abusive preemption has paved the way for the rise of federal authoritarianism – and how preemption is now being used to implement that agenda.

As many 2025 state legislative sessions come to a close, abusive preemption once again threatens local control of a number of issues. Across the country, states continue to advance legislation that interferes with the ability of local governments to tailor local solutions for local needs.

A look at recent legislative sessions and how state lawmakers across the country are feeling emboldened to continue abusing preemption to intentionally harm LGBTQ+ youth and deprive them of safe and nurturing educational environments.

A look at how the Local Solutions Support Center has tracked abusive preemption bills – in 25 states – that attack local authority on immigration policies in the 2025 legislative session.

Just seven weeks into 2025, we’re already seeing more of the same concerning activity as it relates to abusive preemption. Some of the most egregious examples of preemption bills have been introduced in Tennessee and Texas. Here’s a deep dive into both states.

In a new paper from A Better Balance, Local Solutions Support Center, and Equality Federation, we trace the local roots of LGBTQ+ equality in the United States and highlight the different types of abusive preemption that target local authority to protect LGBTQ+ individuals.

In a new paper from Local Solutions Support Center, Curricular Preemption: The New Front of an Old Culture War, we discuss the growing trend of curricular preemption and its impact on local school districts.

During the 2022 state legislative session Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC) publishes a weekly digest summarizing notable abusive preemption bills and their progress through session.

Determining whether local governments have authority to implement local tenant protections, particularly in the face of potential state preemption, remains a challenge.

A new white paper from LSSC explores in more detail how some state legislatures are using preemption to undermine local control of police budgeting, accountability, and management.

This snapshot identifies states where abusive preemption bills have been enacted or are pending in 2021. In some states, multiple bills addressing the same issues have been introduced, but that is not reflected in this data.

This fact sheet, produced in partnership with ChangeLab Solutions, summarizes this emerging threat to state and local public health authority and identifies some of the possible outcomes.

The Local Solutions Support Center has compiled short memos summarizing the nature and scope of local authority in each state.

In the wake of recent demonstrations against racist police and vigilante violence against Black communities, we will likely see increased legislative attacks on protestors.

This groundbreaking new framework lays out a vision for rebalancing state and local relations, and provides model constitutional language to encourage legal reform.

“Preempting LGBTQ+ Rights: How States Undermine Local Leadership and Innovation on LGBTQ+ Equality,” is a 2026 update of a previous report, published as a partnership between A Better Balance, Equality Federation, and the Local Solutions Support Center.

This white paper tells the powerful and timely story of how abusive preemption has paved the way for the rise of federal authoritarianism – and how preemption is now being used to implement that agenda.

A new white paper from Local Progress and Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC), Driving Toward Equitable Traffic Enforcement, offers local advocates and policymakers a roadmap for advancing traffic safety policies that promote driving equity - while highlighting preemption-related concerns to keep in mind.  

Rick Su, Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, has written a new white paper for LSSC that charts the growth and evolution of immigration-related preemption measures in recent years.

A new white paper by Richard Briffault for Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC), Preemption of Local Election Administration, looks at how legislatures are working to advance abusive preemption measures designed to burden LEOs and limit their ability to promote democracy.

In a new paper from A Better Balance, Local Solutions Support Center, and Equality Federation, we trace the local roots of LGBTQ+ equality in the United States and highlight the different types of abusive preemption that target local authority to protect LGBTQ+ individuals.

States have begun to impair or eradicate whole realms of local authority entirely. This White Paper explains the historical underpinnings of this rapidly emerging trend, the forms this preemption is taking, and the reasons why structural change to bolster local authority in the face of this new preemption is ever-more critical.

In a new paper from Local Solutions Support Center, Curricular Preemption: The New Front of an Old Culture War, we discuss the growing trend of curricular preemption and its impact on local school districts.

Preempting Progress: States Take Aim at Local Prosecutors examines how as local communities have called on prosecutors to use their discretion to embrace reform and a less carceral approach to criminal justice, states have intervened in an attempt to force prosecutors to continue tough-on-crime policies.

Some states have begun to use preemption to force localities to criminalize camping in public, taking local resources away from proven solutions that could address the root causes of homelessness. Rather than solve the crisis, this preemption exacerbates it by punishing people who can find shelter nowhere else.

As part of the Local Solutions Support Center’s ongoing efforts to help local leaders understand and deploy their authority to address their communities’ needs, we have produced this memo outlining what local election administration involves and how it threatens democracy.

In this white paper, we document how Juul has flooded statehouses with lobbyists to advance T-21 legislation – bills to raise the purchase age of tobacco to 21, but that include poison pill measures preempting local governments from further regulating tobacco products.

The unfortunate result of this burgeoning legislative movement to adopt statue statutes and other punitive preemption measures has been the erosion of local democracy, the stifling of local political innovation, and the undermining of local faith in the democratic process.

All preemption laws are in tension with local democracy, but punitive preemption is especially threatening. Many state preemption laws are vague around the edges; some may violate the state’s constitution or legal doctrines.