When five American colonists got together to draft the Declaration of Independence, they zeroed in on their key grievances. Among them was the British King’s refusal to allow the colonies to govern in the way they desired. The drafters saw this as violation of local sovereignty, and wrote self-determination into the Declaration as a non-negotiable demand. This later galvanized the fifty-six men who signed the document in 1776.
Fast-forward 250 years for the ironic twist: Many states and the federal government are now working hard to restrict localities from determining things like the local minimum wage. Red states, in particular, are actively keeping cities from enacting environmental protections, election reforms, and rules to protect the civil and human rights of LGBTQ+ people and immigrants. They’re also developing curricula for public schools and deciding which books can and cannot be taught.
These restrictions, called preemption laws, make localities subservient to the will of state or federal authorities. And according to the Local Solutions Support Center, a national watchdog that tracks state and federal efforts to preempt cities from imposing progressive reforms, the first quarter of 2026 saw nearly 850 preemption bills introduced in statehouses nationwide.
Katie Belanger, LSSC’s lead consultant, tells The Progressive that preemption has become alarmingly common since Trump [re]took office in 2024, something she sees as “an effort to create a new class of power brokers and oligarchs.” Its champions include a host of libertarian and conservative groups, including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the American Petroleum Institute, the Chamber of Commerce, the Cicero Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Beverage and Restaurant Associations, groups that have been extremely active in attempting to quash the imposition of taxes on sugary beverages. Their collective aim, she says, is to “roll back democracy, increase corporate profits, and advance industry deregulation.”
Belanger calls it “an oligarchy-versus-working-people issue.”
Currently, the nation’s rightwing preemption efforts are led by three states: Florida, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, with anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant, and anti-business regulation at the top of their priority list.
Spring Miller, senior director of legal strategy at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Center, describes a range of rightwing legislative efforts that have unfolded to make her state inhospitable to newcomers and keep city governments from serving the diverse constituencies that make Tennessee their home.
They’ve made headway, Miller says. Not only are localities barred from becoming sanctuary cities, but come July 1, all Tennessee state agencies except its department of education (which is barred by law from excluding undocumented students from K-12 public school programs) will be required to verify the immigration status of people receiving public benefits or services or applying for a state license. This information—which will apply to Green Card holders, those with Temporary Protected Status or Humanitarian Parole as well as the undocumented—will then be reported to immigration authorities.
In addition, by year’s end, Tennessee will require all law enforcement personnel to follow 287(g) program mandates that commit them to cooperating with federal ICE officers in immigration arrests, raids, traffic stops, or other crackdowns. Miller sees this as “diverting the core public safety functions of a police department.”
Still, it is not all bad news. On the bright side, Miller reports that several of Tennessee’s state preemption efforts have failed. A bid to make it a Class E felony for lawmakers to vote in favor of sanctuary policies was struck down by the courts as a violation of free speech. Likewise, efforts to keep undocumented children from attending public school classes, in violation of a 1982 Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe, was postponed by a coalition of educators, activists, and parents.
But immigrants are not the only people in the right’s crosshairs. Belanger reports that the queer community—particularly trans people—are currently a prime focus of conservative preemptors.
Vivian Topping, senior director of civic engagement at the nearly thirty-year-old Equality Federation, a network of state-based LGBTQ+ organizations, says that while the majority of efforts to curtail the civil and human rights of the queer community have to date failed, the state of Iowa is a transphobic exception.
To wit: The Hawkeye State recently barred municipalities from enacting protective policies for gender diverse people. In fact, this year’s passage of Senate File 579 expands on Iowa’s 2025 elimination of gender identity as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
But states are not the only entities trying to enact preemption policies. In addition to state preemption, the federal government is also getting into the act, centering its efforts on preempting states from holding oil and gas companies accountable for the environmental damage they cause.
Corey Riday-White, managing attorney at the Center for Climate Integrity, tells The Progressive that bills have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to give oil and gas companies immunity from laws and lawsuits that seek to hold them responsible for climate destruction. The bills also void superfund laws that require corporate polluters to clean up the environmental degradation they’ve caused. The American Petroleum Institute was quick to voice support for the measures, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Harriet Hageman.
“The American Petroleum Institute and the Trump Administration want to give energy companies a liability shield,” Riday-White says. “We believe that Exxon and the other companies knew their product was going to cause harm and they did not act to stop that harm.”
Riday-White calls the potential impact of this federal legislation “monumental” and says that the bills constitute direct pushback against local efforts to ban fracking and stop oil and gas pipeline construction. Oklahoma and Utah, he notes, “have already passed bills that brazenly say that oil and gas companies cannot be sued for the climate harm they’ve caused. These states have given big oil and gas a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. The federal government is now trying to do this on a national level. It’s a bold attempt to put corporate interests over the interests of people in communities.”
Ben Price, education director at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, agrees with Riday-White, and adds that environmental preemption is largely being promoted by “industries that do not want to be regulated. Industry opponents know that state regulations do not adequately protect people’s health and safety and they are angry because they are prohibited from doing more to protect themselves and their neighbors.”
Still, as worrisome as all of this is, advocates note that efforts to contest preemption are gaining momentum at the state level and nationally.
“Pushback happens in a few ways,” Belanger explains. “We have a good track record on challenging preemption bills through litigation. Many of them fail to align with state constitutional protections and are defeated as a result. Others have been successfully challenged because they are overly broad and confusing.”
Last year, only about 11 percent of the more than 800 preemption bills introduced in the states passed.
That said, the threat that preemption bills pose to local governance is enormous.
“Over the past few years, states have abused preemption to advance authoritarianism, increase corporate profits, and harm specific communities,” Belanger says. “Those of us who care about the planet and care about democracy have to act. The system is working as intended for corporations and the elite. But it is not working for the majority of the people.”