Easy Pickings: State Legislatures Look to their Local Governments

This paper explores the fluctuations in the state-local relationship during 2011 through examining state legislative actions that directly affected general-purpose local governments. The goal is to determine how legislative actions affected local jurisdictions, particularly whether these enactments burdened or empowered localities. We explore the degree to which these new laws vary across states, and identify possible explanations for the variation. We find that, on balance, a higher number of empowering laws were enacted, although the trend varies by state. Preliminary analysis suggests that the explanation for these actions is embedded in the state-local context, partisanship, and legislative professionalism