Pandemic Backlash Leaves Cities With Less Decision-Making Power

Leading cities through the biggest public health crisis in a century has come with a lasting side effect for mayors: state clampdowns on their authority to address the next emergency.

Legislators in more than a dozen states passed laws in recent months dismantling the ability of city and county governments to mandate masks, shutter businesses, and require vaccines. Many communities already lifted restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19, but lawmakers pushing the measures say they don’t want local leaders to have those options in the future.

The power struggle amplifies a broader trend of state preemption, in which ...