Broadband
US Chamber of Commerce calls on feds to preempt CA privacy law
MarTech Today, 9/7/2018
Chemical Safety
Local Pesticide Bans Face Political Opposition, Court Challenges
Bloomberg News, 9/13/2018
House lawmakers are seeking to halt a trend in communities—local ordinances to ban or restrict pesticides that opponents say conflict with state and federal laws.
Local government officials—skeptical that state and federal pesticide regulations are sufficiently protective of public health—are passing ordinances restricting the spraying of bug- and weedkillers in parks, front lawns, and other public areas at the behest of community members. The issue has been litigated in courts and debated in state legislatures for decades.
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives have inserted language into the latest farm bill that would prevent local governments from enacting pesticides regulations.
How the Farm Bill Could Keep You from Banning Roundup at Your Kid’s Playground
Civil Eats, 9/5/2018
Over 60 Local Officials Call on the Farm Bill Conference Committee to Reject Local Pesticide Preemption
Friends of the Earth, 9/13/2018
Other
Resolutions Adopted by the Democratic National Committee, 9/25/2018
14. Resolution Supporting Local Democracy
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Democratic National Committee affirms the Democratic Party’s commitment to local democracy, to the power of local government to improve on state standards, and in the absence of state law, pass policies that reflect their communities’ needs, values and votes.
Opinion
Corporatism is infringing on your backyard like never before
The Washington Post, 9/5/2018
The American Beverage Association, the powerful trade association representing PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and other sugar-sweetened-beverage companies, took California’s state legislature hostage this summer…
This cynical soda-tax deal is a stark example of corporate-backed preemption laws — that is, state laws that bar local governments from addressing local problems. Such legislation threatens local revenue for police, fire services, parks, libraries, roads, bridges and any other essential municipal services.
Calif. Soda Tax Ballot Measure OK’d For Signature Gathering
Law360, 9/10/2018
California prepares for a new war over soda taxes – and it could spill over into the 2020 election
CNBC, 9/7/2018
[T]he measure also seeks to change the state constitution and could upend a compromise reached in June between California lawmakers and the beverage industry that banned new local taxes on soda until 2031…
In addition, the CMA and CDA measure seeks to unwind the state legislature’s compromise reached in June with the beverage industry. It would amend the state constitution to allow new local taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks.
Opinion
Will Soda Industry have Allies in Fight Against New Tax Proposal?
Fox & Hounds, 9/10/2018
In response to AB 872, the state doctor and dental associations filed the initiative to raise statewide taxes on sugary drinks and allow for local governments to raise soda/sugary drink taxes as well thus overturning the legislative solution that became law with AB 872…
It is possible the soda industry might find itself alone on the ballot initiative battlefield in 2020.
Mike Foote: Amendment 74 threatens legal free-for-all
Daily Camera, 9/15/2018
If approved by voters, Amendment 74 will radically upend decades of settled law by requiring taxpayer remuneration if any government decision reduces anyone’s property value by any amount. Every property-related decision made by a local government or the state will immediately be subject to a lawsuit, often by parties on both sides of an issue.
Either zoning will cease to exist or taxpayers will be on the hook for millions, or even billions, of dollars.
City asks judge for swift action in minimum wage case
The Ledger, 9/13/2018
In a case being watched by business groups and local governments, the city of Miami Beach is asking the Florida Supreme Court to act quickly in a battle about the legality of a local minimum wage…
Siding with opponents such as the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, the 3rd District Court of Appeal in December ruled that state law blocks Miami Beach from moving forward with the minimum wage. The appeals court said a state “preemption” law prevents local governments from establishing minimum wages.
HOW A RAGTAG GROUP OF OREGON LOCALS TOOK ON THE BIGGEST CHEMICAL COMPANIES IN WORLD — AND WON
The Intercept, 9/15/2018
The Lincoln County aerial spray ban, which passed in May 2017, is just one of 155 local measures that restrict pesticides. Communities around the country — including Dubuque, Iowa; Reno, Nevada; Spokane, Washington; and Santa Fe, New Mexico — have instituted protections that go beyond the basic limits set by federal law. Some are aimed at specific pesticides, such as glyphosate, others list a few; while still others ban the chemicals altogether. In the three decades after the first local pesticide restriction was passed in 1970 in Maine, the bans came in a slow trickle. These days, they are coming in a flood, with towns and counties passing more of these measures in the past six years than they did in the 40 before that, according to data from the advocacy group Beyond Pesticides.
Heavy-Handed Industry Maneuver to Crush Soda and Grocery Taxes Is on Oregon Ballot
Exposed by CMD, 9/6/2018
As public health advocates across the country push for small tax boosts to sodas and other sugary drinks to battle obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, the soda industry and its allies are playing hardball.
To put an end to successful soda tax campaigns in California, industry lobbyists threatened to put a measure on the California ballot banning all local taxes — not just soda taxes — a form of high-stakes hostage taking that forced legislators in Sacramento to ban local soda taxes until 2030 in exchange for taking the measure off the ballot.
Now this heavy-handed industry overkill has come to Oregon, where an allied group — the grocers — has spent over $2.3 million on a wildly over-broad constitutional amendment that would not just impact soda taxes but can be read as prohibiting taxes at all stages in the chain of commerce, permanently preventing the state and its cities and counties from levying any taxes related to distribution or sale of all groceries.
Opinion
Local control belongs to municipalities not special interests
Statesman Journal, 9/7/2018
Keep groceries from ever being taxed in Oregon
Statesman Journal, 9/7/2018
Two opinion pieces, the first opposing and the second in favor of Ballot Measure 103, which if passed would preempt soda taxes and chill the growing grassroots movement for local taxes on sugar sweetened beverages.
Texas’ Anti-Trans ‘Bathroom Bill’ Died Last Year. It May Come Back to Life.
The Daily Beast, 9/12/2018
Republican lawmakers, including state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, who sponsored last year’s failed anti-trans ‘bathroom bill,’ plan on trying to pass a raft of anti-LGBT legislation.
Note: State anti-LGBTQ laws typically preempt local nondiscrimination policies adopted by schools, municipalities, and other subdivisions of the state.
Texas GOP Lawmakers Vow to Pass Bathroom Bill, Other Anti-LGBTQ Measures
OutSmart Magazine, 9/8/2018
How the Texas Supreme Court Nixed an Anti-litter Ordinance
Waste360, 9/11/2018
Noting a “roving, roiling debate over local control of public affairs…, [f]rom public education to immigration policy to fracking to shopping bags,” the Texas Supreme Court struck down a municipal anti-litter ordinance that would have prohibited merchants from providing “single-use” plastic and paper bags for point-of-sale purchases.
As part of its strategic plan to create a trash-free community, to promote city beautification and to reduce the effects of improper storm-water drainage due to “obstruction by litter from checkout bags,” the city of Laredo (population 236,000) adopted an ordinance aimed at one-time-use bags.
Utah League of Cities and Towns leaders fear losing local zoning and police powers if medical pot is legalized
The Salt Lake Tribune, 9/12/2018
The Utah League of Cities and Towns stopped just short of formally opposing November’s Proposition 2 on Tuesday after a lengthy discussion on the public effects and potential risks of legalizing medical marijuana in the state.
Marijuana does have medicinal benefits, a resolution approved by the league’s board of directors states, but a ballot initiative on the topic would preempt and infringe on the ability of cities to oversee land use, business licensing, law enforcement and zoning.
“Cities and towns oppose any action to preempt traditional local authority to enact ordinances that are vital to the public safety, health, and welfare of our communities.”
Proposition 2 includes language that prohibits cities from specifically discriminating against cannabis dispensaries. DJ Schanz, director of the Utah Patients Coalition, said the provisions mirror the state’s approach to liquor stores and tobacco shops and that city and county leaders retain authority over broad zoning categories and designations.
Roanoke City Council Wants To Destroy Virginia’s Preemption,,, (Again)
AmmoLand, 9/12/2018
Roanoke City Council will be asking the General Assembly to neuter Virginia’s firearms-preemption laws so that Roanoke can ban guns at government meetings and in government buildings.
Opinion
Initiative 1634 Misleads on Grocery Taxes, Preempts Soda Taxes and Tramples Local Control
PR Watch, 9/12/2018
Public health campaigners have succeeded in getting eight localities across the country to enact taxes on sodas and other sugary beverages as a way to crack down on sugar consumption and battle obesity. These measures are being promoted by the public health community to counter the rise in obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. But they are facing sophisticated opposition campaigns spearheaded by the deep-pocketed American Beverage Association (ABA), the trade association representing soda industry giants Coke and Pepsi.
Initiative 1634 is crafted as an anti-grocery tax measure and opens with the warm and fuzzy language, “Whereas access to food is a basic human need of every Washingtonian.”
But Washington doesn’t have a state tax on groceries, and food and food ingredients are already exempt from taxation. Only drinks that contain less than 50 percent fruit juice can be taxed, according to a state Department of Revenue determination in August 2017.
The beverage industry has worked to frame the sugar-sweetened beverage tax issue as one of groceries in order to associate its products with foods that are markedly healthier than its own and broaden its political coalition, as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has reported.
