February 2021
In many states, including Florida, legislatures increasingly are passing bills that preempt local power granted to city and county government. State governments dominated by Republicans, the American Legislative Exchange Council and business interests combine to pass legislation to explicitly block local action on an array of issues. Preemption moves government action away from the entity closest to the people. It can be used to block local ordinances that reflect a community’s will to help women, people of color, LGBTQ people and those in poverty. Since March 2020, when COVID-19 forced the implementation of mitigation strategies, Republican governors in particular have preempted local governments’ power to institute stay-at-home orders, mask mandates and other measures. That has been the case in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has refused to issue a statewide mask mandate while impeding the ability of local governments to institute their own precautions.
In 2020, 42 preemption bills were filed in the Florida Legislature, which is consistent with the number filed in the previous three years. Legislators are already filing preemption legislation for consideration in 2021. Some of the bills have been proposed in previous years while other bills are new preemptions, significantly broadening the state’s ability to override the home rule authority of local governments.
[…] November’s vote in Key West to block large ships from docking; another corporate campaign persuaded the Legislature last year to override a Key West ban on certain types of sunscreen that have been linked to damage in […]