Red States

Preemption laws are stripping cities of self-governance

When Austin, Texas, passed paid sick leave in 2018, the state legislature killed it. When Kansas City voted to raise its minimum wage in 2015, Missouri passed a law prohibiting any city from setting wages above the state level. When cities across the South adopted sanctuary policies, state legislatures made them illegal.

This is preemption: state governments overriding local decisions on wages, gun regulations, rent control, and police oversight. The Local Solutions Support Center is tracking nearly 850 preemption bills in 2026 sessions alone, up roughly one-third from two years ago.

The Economic Policy Institute’s preemption tracker documents which states block which local policies:

Nearly 75 percent of prefiled preemption bills for 2026 come from just two states: Florida and Missouri. Missouri Senator Schmitt has proposed legislation that would end sanctuary cities permanently, impose fines on municipalities that adopt sanctuary policies, require all employers to use E-Verify, and make it a felony to provide support to undocumented people.

The pattern is consistent: cities pass popular local policies, then state legislatures controlled by a different party override them. It is not about good governance. It is about who holds power.

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Attorney general offices are running political campaigns through the courts

State attorneys general in Texas, Florida, and Missouri have turned their offices into policy weapons. They are not enforcing existing law. They are using litigation to create new policy and build national profiles.

Texas AG Ken Paxton is the most aggressive example. A joint investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found that Paxton’s office has filed at least 30 cases over the past nine years in counties with little connection to the disputes, choosing courts likely to deliver favorable rulings. In 2017, Paxton co-authored a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to crack down on forum shopping in federal courts. He now practices it routinely in state courts.

In April 2026, Paxton sued ActBlue, the fundraising platform used by Democratic candidates, claiming it accepts improper donations. ActBlue responded with a federal lawsuit alleging Paxton used the power of his office to violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In 2025, Paxton sued the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to force changes to work-study programs at state universities.

Florida AG James Uthmeier was held in civil contempt by a federal judge in June 2025 for defying a court order that barred enforcement of a new Florida immigration law. The law made it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants to enter or re-enter the state. After Judge Kathleen Williams issued a restraining order, Uthmeier told media he would not “rubber-stamp her order” or “direct law enforcement to stand down on enforcing the Trump agenda.” The judge ordered biweekly compliance reports. Uthmeier’s office has also launched investigations into proxy advisory firms over ESG and DEI policies, framing corporate diversity programs as unfair trade practices.

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey sued Starbucks in February 2025, claiming its workforce had become “more female and less white” and that DEI hiring practices violated anti-discrimination law. He had already sued IBM in June 2024 over similar claims. Missouri state lawmakers pushed back against Bailey’s request for a $3 million budget increase to fund these lawsuits. Bailey left the AG office in August 2025 to become co-deputy director of the FBI.

These are not enforcement actions. They are auditions for higher office, funded by taxpayers.

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School vouchers are draining public education budgets state by state

School voucher programs redirect public tax dollars to private and religious schools. Proponents call it “school choice.” In practice, it transfers public money to private institutions with no requirement to serve students with disabilities and no obligation to report test scores.

As of early 2026, roughly 30 states have some form of voucher program, and 18 of those are universal, meaning any family can apply regardless of income. The expansion accelerated in 2025:

Federal vouchers: the reconciliation bill

The federal government followed. The reconciliation bill signed by President Trump on July 4, 2025, created the first national voucher program: a $5 billion annual tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting nonprofits, capped at $1,700 per donor, running from 2026 through 2029.

The money has to come from somewhere. In states that have had voucher programs longest, the pattern is clear: public school budgets shrink as voucher enrollment grows. Rural districts, which have no private school alternatives, lose funding without gaining options.

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DEI bans are reshaping universities and public employment

Since 2023, 18 states have passed legislation restricting DEI initiatives at public colleges: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The direction is the same across all of them: close diversity offices, ban DEI training, and threaten funding for schools that do not comply.

Here are the bills, by state, that did the most damage:

Federal DEI legislation

At the federal level, H.R. 1282, the “Eliminate DEI in Colleges Act,” would cut federal funding to any institution that maintains DEI programs.

Texas SB 12: the furthest reach

Texas SB 12 went further than any previous state law. Gov. Abbott signed it in June 2025, and it took effect September 1. In February 2026, a federal court temporarily blocked enforcement of key provisions in the Houston, Katy, and Plano school districts, including the ban on student clubs focused on sexual orientation or gender identity. U.S. District Judge Charles Eskridge ruled the provisions likely violated students’ constitutional rights. The case is ongoing.

The ACLU has challenged SB 12 as unconstitutional. But as the legal fight plays out, schools across Texas are already changing policies, canceling programs, and avoiding any mention of diversity to stay out of the crosshairs.

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Religious instruction is entering public school classrooms

The separation of church and state in public education is being tested in three states simultaneously, and the federal courts are split on what to do about it.

Louisiana and Oklahoma started it

In June 2024, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed HB 71, requiring every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments by January 1, 2025. That same month, Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters ordered all public schools to incorporate the Bible into instruction for grades 5-12, including keeping physical copies of the Bible, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Ten Commandments in every classroom.

In November 2024, a federal judge ruled Louisiana’s HB 71 unconstitutional, calling it coercive to students who “cannot opt out of viewing the Ten Commandments when they are displayed in every classroom, every day.”

Texas followed, and the Fifth Circuit blessed it

In June 2025, the Fifth Circuit enjoined multiple Louisiana school districts from implementing HB 71. That same month, Texas Governor Abbott signed Senate Bill 10, requiring Ten Commandments displays in every Texas public school classroom for the 2025-26 school year. In August 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking Texas SB 10 in eleven school districts.

Then in February 2026, the full Fifth Circuit voted 12-6 to lift the injunction against Louisiana’s law, saying it was “premature” to rule on constitutionality before implementation. In April 2026, the Fifth Circuit ruled Texas SB 10 constitutional, finding it violated neither the Establishment Clause nor the Free Exercise Clause.

Texas SB 10 mandates that every public school hang a “durable poster or framed copy” of the Ten Commandments, at least 16 by 20 inches, with text large enough to read from anywhere in the classroom. Attorney General Paxton has instructed schools to comply immediately.

In Oklahoma, several of the state’s largest school districts have refused to change their curriculums in response to Walters’ Bible mandate. The Oklahoma attorney general’s office has clarified that school districts, not the state superintendent, have the power to set curriculum. But Walters has threatened to revoke teaching licenses for noncompliance.

The pattern is the same as every other policy on this page: one state passes it, a neighboring state copies it, and a friendly appeals court upholds it.

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How policies spread: the ALEC assembly line

None of this happens by accident. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) brings together conservative state legislators and corporate lobbyists to draft model bills. Those bills get introduced in multiple states, sometimes word for word.

A two-year investigation by USA Today and the Center for Public Integrity found that state lawmakers introduced nearly 2,900 bills based on ALEC templates between 2010 and 2018, with more than 600 becoming law. Roughly 200 ALEC model bills become law each year.

In January 2026, ALEC adopted 70 new model policies. At its December 2025 summit in Texas, members debated proposals to suppress voting, advance MAGA priorities, defund public education, and curtail environmental regulations. ALEC leaders served on the advisory board of Project 2025.

The Center for Media and Democracy has described this as ALEC’s own Project 2025 for the states: a coordinated plan to dismantle regulations, bolster the fossil fuel industry, gut public education funding, and restrict voting rights, all through state legislatures rather than Congress.

This is why the same bill language shows up in Oklahoma and Louisiana, why Texas and Florida pass near-identical laws within months of each other, and why fighting one state’s bad policy is never enough.

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Protect yourself right now

1. Know what your state legislature is doing. The Local Solutions Support Center tracks preemption bills in real time. The Chronicle of Higher Education tracks DEI restrictions. The BestColleges anti-DEI tracker covers pending and passed bills by state. Check yours.

2. Show up when your city fights back. When state legislatures preempt local minimum wage laws, paid sick leave, or sanctuary policies, the people who lose are your neighbors. Attend city council meetings. Contact your state representative. Make the cost of preemption visible.

3. Follow the money on vouchers. If your state has a voucher program, find out how much public school funding has decreased since it launched. The NEA and NPR have published state-by-state analyses. Share the numbers with your school board and local news.

4. Check your school district’s policies. If you live in a state with DEI bans or religious mandates, ask your school board what has changed. Find out whether student clubs have been cut, diversity training canceled, or Ten Commandments posters ordered. Your school board needs to hear from you before compliance becomes the default.

5. Verify who your attorney general is suing. Your state AG’s office publishes press releases for every lawsuit. Read the last ten. If your AG is suing companies over hiring practices, fundraising platforms, or sanctuary cities, that is your tax money. Call your AG’s constituent line and say so.