Raising the Cost of Control: How Local Governments Resist State Preemption

Minimum wage. Rent control. Fracking regulation. Public political memory. Who has the right to shape the policies closest to home? The intuitive answer — that those closest to an issue should have the most say — runs directly into the reality of American federalism, which distributes authority across federal, state, and local governments in ways that are overlapping, contested, and often anything but harmonious.