April 11, 2019
“[E]very generation or so a case comes along when this Court needs to say enough is enough,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in 2012, “if the Equal Protection Clause is to retain any force in this context.” The context he was referring to was the extreme discretion given to state and local governments to vary the…
January 17, 2019
American politics features two political parties that cannot agree on much of anything. On the biggest and the smallest of issues, what candidates and officials from the parties do and what they say increasingly diverge. But there is an exception: left and right, coastal or flyover, first-time candidate or long-time incumbent, almost all candidates for…
January 8, 2019
The lines between national politics and state or local politics, always blurred and squiggled, continue to evaporate. Just look at the recent “blue wave” midterm elections, in which a fierce backlash to Donald Trump carried hundreds of Democrats into state and local offices. In Texas, for example, the wave transformed courts across the state and…
May 29, 2018
Conflicts between local governments and short-term rental platforms like Airbnb are growing, and in some cases getting ugly. Platform critics point to studies suggesting they pull long-term rental units off the market, reducing supply and driving up rents. To date, debates over short-term rentals have led to relatively similar regulations across the country: registration of…
January 19, 2018
In November 2016, the city of San Francisco enacted a ballot initiative that was somewhat overshadowed by other election results. It permitted noncitizens with children in the public school system to vote in school board elections. Though it is unclear whether the measure will have much practical impact on the city schools, the measure has…
November 21, 2017
We tend to think of states as the classic site of Brandeisian experimentalism, but cities, counties, towns and other local governments — by virtue of their number and variety, their sensitivity to local conditions and preferences, and their capacity to respond to the immediacy of emerging policy challenges — are equally, if not more, important…
October 19, 2017
Cities are once again center stage in our national debate over immigration. A decade ago, the focus was on whether cities can participate in federal immigration enforcement. Now the fight is over whether they can refuse. Given the political vitriol over “sanctuary cities” — a loaded label that remains ill-defined — one might assume that…
