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Arkansas inches closer to transgender ‘bathroom bill’
LGBTQ Nation, 3/16/2017
Lakeland officials are fighting bills they say attack their ability to govern
The Ledger, 3/14/2017
“Every session, we seem to have to fight what I see as encroachments of constitutional rights of home rule,” Commissioner Don Selvage said, referring to powers left to cities by the state government…
CS/HB 17, Local Regulation Pre-emption, would deny local governments the ability to adopt or impose “new regulations on a business, profession or occupation unless the regulation is expressly authorized by general law,” according to the House of Representatives staff analysis. The bill was introduced by Palm Bay Republican Rep. Randy Fine…
“There is an attack on home rule like I have not seen in 25 years,” Mayor Howard Wiggs said of the legislative session.
Iowa Senate panel asked to raise minimum wage before preemption
Sioux City Journal, 3/21/2017
Members of a Senate panel were urged Monday to consider raising the state’s minimum wage before they take up a House-passed local pre-emption measure that would void pay levels in four counties that are higher than Iowa’s statewide wage floor…
However, opponents to the pre-emption bill, like Ryan Arnold, senior minister at the First Christian Church in Des Moines, said they worry the bill would carry unintended consequences by rolling back scheduled pay raises for some families fighting to feed their families and stay off public assistance…
The legislation includes broad pre-emption language that blocks cities and counties from implementing policies that are at odds with state law, including setting minimum wages that exceed the state level of $7.25 an hour. If signed by Gov. Terry Branstad, H.F. 295 would nullify higher wage floors approved in Johnson, Linn, Polk and Wapello counties…
“This bill is flying in the face of local control,” countered Lucas Beenken of the Iowa State Association of Counties.
Maryland Senate Passes Paid Sick Leave Bill
U.S. World & News Report, 3/16/2017
SB 230, the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act, preempts local authority to set higher sick and safe leave standards.
Hogan: Sick-leave bills ‘dead on arrival’
Washington Post, 3/15/2017
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Wednesday rejected both versions of paid-sick-leave legislation advancing through the General Assembly, apparently because they require businesses with as few as 15 employees to offer the benefit and do not give employers tax credits or other incentives to lessen the financial blow.
H.1158 preempts local health departments from banning any tobacco product that is legal to sell in the state, and could therefore preempt local Tobacco 21 policies that prohibit the sale of tobacco products to persons under the age of 21.
Kalispell legislator seeks ban on sanctuary cities
Helena Independent Record, 3/20/2017
A legislator from Kalispell has introduced a bill that would ban sanctuary cities in Montana and inflict steep financial punishment for any local governments that violate the law.
Rep. Derek Skees, R-Kalispell, introduced House Bill 611 on Monday.
Nebraska: Important Firearms Preemption Bill Passes Committee
NRA-ILA, 3/17/2017
LB 68, a firearms super-preemption bill, passed the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs committee in the Nebraska legislature on March 14, 2017. Nebraska is the only US state with a unicameral legislature.
Competing minimum wage bills moving along
Albuquerque Journal, 3/14/2017
Legislature needs to get serious about minimum wage
Albuquerque Journal, 3/15/2017
With less than a week left in the 2017 legislative session, it looks like New Mexico’s working families may again be left to fight for crumbs. Despite the introduction of two living wage bills that would raise the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour or more, New Mexico’s poorest workers will likely have to settle for much less. More troubling, a deal for a slight increase in the minimum wage may come at the expense of local governments being prohibited from increasing working conditions at the local level in the future…
The two other minimum wage bills that do have some momentum going into the last few days of the session are problematic. HB 442, sponsored by several Democratic legislators including Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Española, and House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, would raise the minimum wage to $9.25 an hour beginning in 2018 but would also prohibit cities and counties from passing laws requiring employers to give advance notice to employees of their work schedules. This pre-emption language, which is based on national model language from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), is part of a growing effort to take away the authority local governments have to improve wages and conditions of work at the local level.
Nevada library gun ban vote scheduled Thursday
Guns.com, 3/15/2017
Reversal of Oregon’s GMO pre-emption debated
Capital Press, 3/16/2017
Nearly four years after barring local governments from regulating genetically engineered crops, Oregon lawmakers are thinking of reversing that policy.
The Oregon Legislature pre-empted all local ordinances over seed in 2013 but is now considering House Bill 2469, which would create an exception allowing local restrictions for genetically engineered crops.
Bill undermines seed preemption law
Natural Resource Report, 3/20/2017
Gun bill would harm state
The Tennessean, 3/18/2017
HB 508/SB 445 would give out-of-state gun groups legal standing to sue Tennessee cities or counties who adopt or enforce local solutions to gun violence.
Current Tennessee law already prevents counties and towns from regulating firearms in almost any way. It’s called preemption…
However, this proposed expansion would allow these out-of-state groups to collect the greatest amount of attorney’s fees, damages or court costs possible. Plain and simple, this bill threatens to punish our communities, and threaten our safety and tax dollars.
House makes changes to ‘Sanctuary Cities’ bill
Valley Morning Star, 3/18/2017
The legislation would accomplish a few things, if passed.
First, it would prohibit sanctuary jurisdictions. Second, it would allow law enforcement officers to arrest individuals they have determined to be unlawful residents. Finally, it would require city and county LEOs to comply with immigration detainer requests.
There is a hefty price to pay for violators of the bill’s provisions. For cities and counties, that is a denial of state grant funds. For the department head of an agency, the punishment is a Class A misdemeanor.
Bills seek to restore local control over oil and gas drilling
Houston Chronicle, 3/17/2017
Two South Texas lawmakers, backed by an environmental group and residents in small-town Texas, are pushing to restore communities’ rights to limit where oil and gas companies drill, particularly around schools and day care facilities.
If successful, a pair of bills from the House and the Senate would chip away at House Bill 40, a 2015 law that stripped municipalities of the right to restrict drilling in city limits. That law superseded more than 300 local ordinances that limited or prohibited local oil and gas development, and declared that any regulations that aren’t “commercially reasonable” – such as a setback that prevents drilling – cannot be enforced.
The House and Senate bills, proposed by two border town Democrats, Rep. Terry Canales of Edinburg and Sen. Judith Zaffirini of Laredo, are the first legislative attack on HB40.
The House bill would require a 1,500-foot drilling setback from schools and day care centers; the Senate bill would require a local public meeting anytime a permit is submitted to drill within 1,500 feet of a school or day care center.
UPDATE: Senate sends transgender bathroom bill to House
The Austin American-Statesman, 3/15/2017
After a second day of sharp disagreement and impassioned debate, the Texas Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to the transgender bathroom bill, sending it to an uncertain reception in the House, where Speaker Joe Straus has said he isn’t a fan and prefers to address other priorities.
The 21-10 vote was unchanged from Tuesday’s initial vote on Senate Bill 6.
HB 2095 / SB52 – “This bill preempts the authority of county Boards of Health to adopt smokefree and any other public health polices by requiring Boards of Health to submit any proposed rules to the local governing body for approval, modification, or rejection. Significantly, the local governing body may also review any existing Board of Health policies in order to approve, modify, or reject them.” – Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights
Former Cheyenne Mayor Applauds Gun Bill Veto
KGAB, 3/16/2017
The Vetoed House Bill 137 would have preempted “Gun Free Zones,” and preempted local governments from prohibiting firearms in government meetings.