New Research
Report: State preemption laws disproportionately hurt women, people of color
TheLensNOLA.com, 5/8/2019
State laws that prevent local governments from making their own rules on issues like affordable housing and minimum wages are especially detrimental to women and people of color. That’s according to a new report from the Partnership for Working Families, a national coalition of advocacy groups.
The report uses Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Colorado as case studies on these so-called “preemption laws.”
For more about recent preemption research, see Research Roundup at the end of this newsletter.
National
Tobacco
When writing a federal Tobacco 21 law, less is more
The Hill, 5/3/2019
[A] federal law could do more harm than good if it interferes with successful state and local tobacco control efforts. Cities like Columbus, Ohio, have learned from the experience of other communities and have devised effective Tobacco 21 policies that protect young people and hold retailers accountable. Other communities are leading the charge to prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes that target African-American communities and to otherwise explore innovative approaches to reducing youth tobacco and e-cigarette use. A federal law that expands federal preemption of state and local tobacco policy could stifle this experimentation and progress. [Emphasis added]