Florida's governor fires a district attorney because he won't prosecute women who violate the abortion ban. The Texas governor sends state police to liberal Austin, places a school district under central control, and restricts the powers of cities and counties generally and preemptively. And Louisiana's new governor is threatening New Orleans with a budget cut if the elected district attorney doesn't change his administration.
The three governors are Republicans, the three mayors are Democrats and the examples represent a trend. The organization Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC) counts 700 relevant government interventions this year alone. Thematically, it mainly concerns the areas of education, education and schools, elections, abortion, security and minority rights. More than half of registered government interventions fall into this category.
US states by parliamentary majority (Senate and House of Representatives) as well as selected democratically governed cities
Democratic city halls targeted by Republicans
The interventions come from Republican governors or from legislatures in US states where Republicans are in the majority. And they target cities and large communities where Democrats are in charge. Black mayors are often affected: in Philadelphia, Nashville, New Orleans, Kansas City, Jackson, Cleveland and other larger cities.
Portal/Andrew Kelly City Hall of Philadelphia, capital of the US state of Pennsylvania
At its annual meeting last summer, the Association of Mayors took a strong stance against the trend toward reducing and weakening local government responsibilities. The accusation: racism and political punitive measures. In a report for the Association of Mayors, attorney Richard Briffault of Columbia University in New York accuses states of undermining local self-government.
Briffault calls it “hypocritical” that states – and especially Republicans – always promote federal principles with the federal government in mind, the unloved Washington, and preach self-government at the lowest level in political discussions. The law professor wrote that behavior toward municipalities was becoming increasingly aggressive.
Keep political and regulatory activism in check
Representatives of the federal states defend themselves, accusing one or another local administration of activism and regulatory madness and recommending themselves to citizens as the true guarantors of an efficient and lean administration. Greg Abbott, for example, the Republican governor of Texas, advocated extensive restrictions on local jurisdictions, saying he wanted to protect small businesses from overregulation.
AP/Austin American-Statesman/Mikala Compton Greg Abbott, Republican governor of Texas
The opposition got angry and spoke of incapacitation. She argued that in the future, Texas cities would no longer be allowed to regulate that workers are entitled to drinking breaks during a heat wave. Houston's Democratic city council sued. A judge agreed with her. The Texas government appealed. The Austin Supreme Court is currently reviewing the law.
Courts as bodies of political arbitration
Many government interventions end up in court. Mississippi's Republican-dominated legislature launched a new justice system in the spring. Especially for the capital Jackson and parallel to the predominantly black city system. The new criminal justice system would be under state control, with Mississippi's chief justice appointing all judges. Jackson needs to be safer, argued Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican. The city sued and ultimately won.
IMAGO/USA TODAY Network/Barbara Gauntt/Clarion Ledger Supreme Court in Jackson, Mississippi
The relevant lawsuits against state mandates in Nashville (Tennessee) and Kansas City (Missouri) are still undecided. In Nashville, Republicans did not want to accept the city speaking out against holding the Republican convention next summer. They quickly halved the number of councilors and took control of the airport away from Nashville.
State Republicans wanted to order Kansas City Mayor, Democrat Quinton Lucas, to set aside a quarter of the city's budget for the police. Lucas, a black man, saw this as a political declaration of war – and a case of discrimination: “This is the way to ensure that our communities are controlled and that black voters are denied self-determination, especially in the South and Central -West”.
AP/Andrew Harnik Quinton Lucas, Democratic mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, at a PK at the White House
Should Washington intervene?
Lucas and other black mayors have joined forces and want to coordinate to be able to more effectively confront federal interventions. One of them, Justin Bibb, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, also appealed to the US government for help. “If you want to see real political change,” Bibb said, “you have to give money directly to cities.”
Such an idea may resonate with US President Joe Biden. But things would certainly be completely different if Donald Trump won the next presidential election. In this case, the Republican threatened months ago that the judiciary would take decisive action against the “radical left”, especially against “Marxists” among the locally appointed prosecutors.