The political geography of workers' rights preemption in the South

• In Event: State-Level Politics and Policy Change

Abstract

Over the last two decades, cities, counties, and local governments across the United States have taken the lead in protecting and advancing workers’ rights. Localities, with pressure from community-labor coalitions, have been successful in enacting legislation that has not previously existed at the federal or state level.  As localities took the lead on innovative workers’ rights policies, state legislatures, particularly conservative legislatures, responded by adopting preemptive laws.

This phenomenon has coincided with geographical sorting of Democrats and Republicans. Urban areas have become more Democratic, younger, and more racially and ethnically diverse than rural areas. Despite this, state legislatures are dominated by mostly rural, Republican, white male legislators. Previous research on workers’ rights preemption has examined the factors that drive state preemption of workers’ rights in the US but there is limited research on the political process of workers’ rights preemption. Understanding preemption at the intersection of party and geography is needed to inform strategy for advancing workers’ rights and to connect preemption to larger issues of local democracy and power. This study asks two questions 1) Who introduces and who votes in favor of state preemption of local workers’ rights legislation? 2) What is the intersection between party and geography?  To answer these questions, I analyze a unique database of workers’ rights preemption bills introduced in Southern state legislatures between 2009 – 2020. I then use descriptive analysis to analyze roll-call votes and bill sponsor characteristics including the sponsor’s party and whether the sponsor represents an urban, suburban or rural jurisdiction. I also examine the demographic composition of the sponsor’s jurisdiction.

I find that most preemption bills are introduced by Republican legislators representing non-urban jurisdictions and votes are typically along party lines.  Preemption bill sponsors also represent demographic constituencies that are less racially diverse than the urban jurisdictions within their state. Findings indicate a geographical mismatch between the legislators who introduce and vote to pass workers’ rights preemption bills and the jurisdictions who are targeted by these bills.

The geographical and demographic mismatch between who introduces, who votes, and who is affected by preemption bills has implications for local democracy. Because state legislators who introduce and vote for preemption bills are located outside of urban areas, they are not accountable to the constituents who are most affected by these bills. This dynamic indicates that electoral politics are insufficient to promote local democracy in preemptive environments. Although localities have been successful in advancing workers’ rights in the past, strategies to advance workers’ rights must contend with the geographic and partisan realities of preemption.

Author

• Courtnee Erin Melton-Fant, University of Memphis
  Presenting Author