Red States

State Preemption of Local Laws

When Austin, Texas, passed paid sick leave in 2018, a Texas appeals court blocked it. When Kansas City voted to raise its minimum wage in 2015, Missouri passed a law prohibiting any city from setting wages above the state level. When cities across the South adopted sanctuary policies, state legislatures made them illegal.

This is preemption: state governments overriding local decisions on wages, gun regulations, rent control, and police oversight. The Local Solutions Support Center is tracking nearly 850 preemption bills in 2026 sessions alone, up roughly one-third from the same point in 2025.

The Economic Policy Institute’s preemption tracker documents which states block which local policies:

Nearly 75 percent of prefiled preemption bills for 2026 come from just two states: Florida and Missouri. U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri has proposed federal legislation that would end sanctuary cities permanently, impose fines on municipalities that adopt sanctuary policies, require all employers to use E-Verify, and make it a felony to provide support to undocumented people.

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Attorney General Lawsuits in Texas, Florida and Missouri

State attorneys general in Texas, Florida, and Missouri have used lawsuits to pursue policy goals beyond enforcing existing law, according to the reporting below.

Texas AG Ken Paxton: A joint investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found that Paxton’s office has filed at least 30 cases over the past nine years in counties with little connection to the disputes, choosing courts likely to deliver favorable rulings. In 2017, Paxton co-authored a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to crack down on forum shopping in federal courts. The investigation found his office now uses the practice in state courts.

In April 2026, Paxton sued ActBlue, the fundraising platform used by Democratic candidates, claiming it accepts improper donations. ActBlue responded with a federal lawsuit alleging Paxton used the power of his office to violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In 2025, Paxton sued the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to force changes to work-study programs at state universities.

Florida AG James Uthmeier was held in civil contempt by a federal judge in June 2025 for defying a court order that barred enforcement of a new Florida immigration law. The law made it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants to enter or re-enter the state. After Judge Kathleen Williams issued a restraining order, Uthmeier told media he would not “rubber-stamp her order” or “direct law enforcement to stand down on enforcing the Trump agenda.” The judge ordered biweekly compliance reports. Uthmeier’s office has also launched investigations into proxy advisory firms over ESG and DEI policies, framing corporate diversity programs as unfair trade practices.

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey sued Starbucks in February 2025, claiming its workforce had become “more female and less white” and that DEI hiring practices violated anti-discrimination law. He had already sued IBM in June 2024 over similar claims. Missouri state lawmakers pushed back against Bailey’s request for a $3 million budget increase to fund these lawsuits. Bailey resigned in September 2025 to become co-deputy director of the FBI.

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School Voucher Programs and Public School Budgets

School voucher programs redirect public tax dollars to private and religious schools. Supporters call it “school choice.” In many states, private schools that take voucher money are not required to serve students with disabilities or to report state test scores.

As of early 2026, roughly 30 states have some form of voucher program, and 18 of those are universal, meaning any family can apply regardless of income. The expansion accelerated in 2025:

The Federal Tax-Credit Scholarship Program

The budget law signed on July 4, 2025, created the first national program of this kind: a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700 per taxpayer for donations to scholarship-granting nonprofits, starting January 1, 2027. An earlier version capped the credits at a yearly total; the final law has no such limit, the Hechinger Report found. States must opt in.

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State DEI Laws for Public Colleges

Since 2023, 17 states have restricted DEI programs at public colleges by law: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. North Carolina’s law took effect when the legislature overrode the governor’s veto on June 24, 2026. Oklahoma acted by governor’s executive order. Most of the laws close diversity offices, bar DEI training, or tie funding to compliance.

The main bills, by state:

Federal DEI Legislation

At the federal level, H.R. 1282, the “Eliminate DEI in Colleges Act,” would cut federal funding to any institution that maintains DEI programs.

Texas Senate Bill 12

Texas SB 12 extended DEI restrictions to K-12 schools. Gov. Abbott signed it in June 2025, and it took effect September 1. In February 2026, a federal court temporarily blocked enforcement of key provisions in the Houston, Katy, and Plano school districts, including the ban on student clubs focused on sexual orientation or gender identity. U.S. District Judge Charles Eskridge ruled the provisions likely violated students’ constitutional rights. The case is ongoing.

The ACLU has challenged SB 12 as unconstitutional.

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Ten Commandments and Bible Mandates in Public Schools

Ten Commandments displays and Bible instruction have been tested in court in three states.

Louisiana’s HB 71 and Oklahoma’s Bible Mandate

In June 2024, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed HB 71, requiring every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments by January 1, 2025. That same month, Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters ordered all public schools to incorporate the Bible into instruction for grades 5-12, including keeping physical copies of the Bible, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Ten Commandments in every classroom.

In November 2024, a federal judge ruled Louisiana’s HB 71 unconstitutional, calling it coercive to students who “cannot opt out of viewing the Ten Commandments when they are displayed in every classroom, every day.”

Texas SB 10 and the Fifth Circuit

On June 20, 2025, a Fifth Circuit panel upheld the injunction barring multiple Louisiana school districts from implementing HB 71. That same month, Texas Governor Abbott signed Senate Bill 10, requiring Ten Commandments displays in every Texas public school classroom for the 2025-26 school year. In August 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking Texas SB 10 in eleven school districts.

Then on February 20, 2026, the full Fifth Circuit vacated that injunction, ruling 11-7 that the challenge to Louisiana’s law was premature because the displays had not gone up. It did not decide whether the law is constitutional. On April 21, 2026, the full Fifth Circuit upheld Texas SB 10, 9-8, and families asked the Supreme Court to review it on August 17, 2026.

Texas SB 10 mandates that every public school hang a “durable poster or framed copy” of the Ten Commandments, at least 16 by 20 inches, with text large enough to read from anywhere in the classroom. Attorney General Paxton has instructed schools to comply immediately.

In Oklahoma, several of the state’s largest school districts have refused to change their curriculums in response to Walters’ Bible mandate. The Oklahoma attorney general’s office said school districts, not the state superintendent, set curriculum, and Walters threatened to revoke teaching licenses for noncompliance. Walters resigned on September 30, 2025, and interim superintendent Lindel Fields ended the classroom Bible mandate that October.

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How Model Bills Spread Through ALEC

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) brings together conservative state legislators and corporate lobbyists to draft model bills. Those bills get introduced in multiple states, sometimes word for word.

A two-year investigation by USA Today and the Center for Public Integrity found that state lawmakers introduced nearly 2,900 bills based on ALEC templates between 2010 and 2018, with more than 600 becoming law. Roughly 200 ALEC model bills become law each year.

In January 2026, ALEC adopted 70 new model policies. The Center for Media and Democracy, which tracks ALEC, reported on the proposals debated at its December 2025 summit in Texas on voting, education and environmental rules. ALEC was listed on the advisory board of Project 2025.

The Center for Media and Democracy has described this as ALEC’s own Project 2025 for the states: a coordinated plan to dismantle regulations, bolster the fossil fuel industry, gut public education funding, and restrict voting rights, all through state legislatures rather than Congress.

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What You Can Do About State Laws

1. Know what your state legislature is doing. The Local Solutions Support Center tracks preemption bills in real time. The Chronicle of Higher Education tracks DEI restrictions. The BestColleges anti-DEI tracker covers pending and passed bills by state. Check yours.

2. Show up when your city fights back. When state legislatures preempt local minimum wage laws, paid sick leave, or sanctuary policies, attend city council meetings. Contact your state representative. Make the cost of preemption visible.

3. Follow the money on vouchers. If your state has a voucher program, find out how much public school funding has decreased since it launched. The NEA and NPR have published state-by-state analyses. Share the numbers with your school board and local news.

4. Check your school district’s policies. If you live in a state with DEI bans or religious mandates, ask your school board what has changed. Find out whether student clubs have been cut, diversity training canceled, or Ten Commandments posters ordered. Ask in public comment, so the answer is on the record.

5. Verify who your attorney general is suing. Your state AG’s office publishes press releases for every lawsuit. Read the last ten. If you disagree with how your AG is spending the office’s budget, call the constituent line and say so.