Last month, the Local Progress Impact Lab and Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC) were proud to host the “Local Power, Shared Futures: Preemption & Home Rule Strategy Summit” in Nashville, Tennessee! This gathering was years in the making and desperately needed in a moment where we are experiencing a significant rise in state preemption, from corporations to far-right extremists state legislators, undermining local democracy at every opportunity.
This summit brought together local elected officials, movement and labor partners, lawyers, and researchers from across the country to develop a collective strategy around preemption. Our shared goal has been to return decision-making authority to local communities to shape and pass policies which meet their unique needs. Centering collaborative governance, we want to expand home rule so that our local elected officials wield power alongside movement and labor partners to deliver for their communities without interference from corrupt actors at the state or federal level. After years of planning, this conference was the culmination of so much work to bring together the right people to focus on how we protect and expand local power.
Over the course of two and a half days, attendees from dozens of communities gathered to strategize, drawing on nearly 20 years of experience combating abusive state preemption to shape our collective plan. A core part of this strategy summit was understanding not only that all of our fights are interconnected, but that the preemption playbook is one deeply rooted in white supremacy and authoritarianism.
We heard from amazing panels on how states like Florida and Texas are laboratories for some of the authoritarian attacks we now see at the federal level. We heard stories from organizers in states like Virginia about how their fight for home rule is bringing together union workers and local officials. We heard from partners in Mississippi and Tennessee on ways they are organizing to protect Black-majority municipalities from state takeover and targeted preemption measures. We also spent critical time building relationships across states and localities to share best practices and new ideas for fighting back against preemption.
Through all of our sessions – whether discussing the messaging used to defeat xenophobic preemption in Tennessee or the similarities in Death Star bills in Texas and West Virginia – we focused not only on shared lessons from losses but also on shared strategies for victories. Core to our fight for local control is learning not only how abusive preemption manifests, but also how to defeat it.
While we strategized and grew our network, there was a notable weight at our summit at times. Many of our local partners went back and forth to the Tennessee General Assembly’s special session, where the state’s one Black-majority Congressional district was on the chopping block post-Callais. Our partner’s bravery to confront such a bold display of white supremacy gave so much more urgency to the work we were all doing and showed just what’s at stake for us in this fight.
But despite the heaviness of the moment we were in, there was so much joy. We made new friends, saw old friends, and also brought the house down with some amazing karaoke performances!
Everyone who attended was so appreciative of the container created to co-conspire on how we will utilize all the tools at our disposal. We left with a plan to play not just defense but offense as well, to develop new ways to advance proactive strategies, and to test our nuanced legal theories, such as home rule. Everyone at this summit should be proud knowing they contributed to developing the national preemption and home rule strategy. Together, we know we will be the ones to protect local democracy and governance and to return power to local communities.
