The Right has hijacked Congress and State Houses. Now it’s coming for the cities,

[Triana]

Few ideas are more powerful in US politics than local control. The South rallied around states’ rights during the Civil War. Conservatives rage at the federal government for meddling in local matters.

But when local control favors progressives, it turns out to be “a form of collectivism” rather than a cherished conservative principle.

That’s what Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently called the trend of city-level bans on plastic bags, fracking and tree-cutting. They form “a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations,” Abbott said, “that are eroding the Texas model” and turning the state into California.

Texas legislators have responded with proposals to preempt local laws, including a bill that would prevent local governments from issuing any ordinance that “conflicts with or is more stringent than a state statute or rule.”

Such bills blocking progressive laws are growing in popularity across the United States, especially in GOP-controlled legislatures. Last year, for example, when Oklahoma City debated raising its minimum wage to $10.10, the state legislature passed a law preventing cities from enacting wage increases.

THE REST:

http://billmoyers.com/2015/05/28/gop-alecs-war-cities/

Bytheway, "collectivism" is a John Birch Society term (now known as the Tea Party). They HATE anything that is for the public good and they hate anything publicly funded and they hate public commons - they call that "collectivism". Most normal people just call it Democracy.

[RiverLover]

1. Its true. Its so strange how involved the Koch Bros are with local issues in Columbus OH

They've stopped our phenomenal zoo from expanding and are working now to override the local voters' choice to reject a huge apartment/condo/entertainment complex from being plopped in the middle of a quaint, artsy, liberal suburb (Powell). They're heavily backing the rethug candidate for mayor...

[octoberlib]

2. Yep. In NC they're trying to

gerrymander city districts so they can control the city councils. They haven't tried it with Charlotte or Raleigh yet.

[Triana]

5. Kochs in NC are also trying to trash our renewable energy standards

NC law currently states that we must derive some 3% or so (some percent - can't remember - very small) of our energy from renewables. Kochs hate that and are trying to get rid of it.

[RiverLover]

6. They were successful in OH. Gov Kasich killed renewables for them here. And its my bet he'll be

their party nom in 2016 once the primary gets going. Kasich is a radical Koch puppet who's dangerous because he comes across as very reasonable & caring when he speaks publicly...it belies his truly destructive, 1% puppeteer nature.

The Koch party is going after the country from every conceivable angle.

[blm]

3. Most normal people call it CIVILIZATION.

But robber barons want the 'freedom' to treat their workers as beasts of burden.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Ok...

a bill that would prevent local governments from issuing any ordinance that “conflicts with or is more stringent than a state statute or rule.”

In other words, no city can have any sort of meaningful ordinances, only ones that simply parrot back state law, with exactly the same amount of force.

[1939]

8. From a constitional basis

The federal government is an association of sovereign states which gave up part of their sovereignity under the Constitution to form the union.

In most states, cities, towns, and villages are instumentalities of the state and are incorporated under state law.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. The right already has my city.

In fact, I think this is a test site to see how to make private-public partnerships more effective in undermining the independence and integrity of our communities. I think they discovered they couldn't be quite as successful without the help of neo-liberals.