On Jan­u­ary 25, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump signed an exec­u­tive order promis­ing to strip fund­ing from the so-called sanc­tu­ary cities that have vowed to defy his plan to deport mil­lions of undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants. Whether and how the order can be enforced is yet unclear, but it sent an unsub­tle mes­sage to cities like New York, Chica­go and Los Ange­les: Resis­tance will not be tolerated.

Preemption laws are deeply and aggressively racist, given the demographics involved: State legislatures, representing largely white populations, impose their will on urban areas.

In Texas, Repub­li­can Gov. Greg Abbott is already wag­ing a proxy bat­tle over immi­gra­tion with the city of Austin. Sal­ly Her­nan­dez, the sher­iff of Travis Coun­ty, which includes Austin, announced on inau­gu­ra­tion day that her depart­ment would coop­er­ate min­i­mal­ly with fed­er­al offi­cials on depor­ta­tions. Abbott respond­ed by can­celling $1.5 mil­lion in crim­i­nal jus­tice grants to the county.

The emerg­ing bat­tle over sanc­tu­ary poli­cies rep­re­sents a new real­i­ty under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion: Faced with his reac­tionary agen­da, cities are going their own way. Their bat­tle to pre­serve local con­trol is among the most momen­tous on the polit­i­cal hori­zon. Local gov­ern­ments are already one of the pri­ma­ry vehi­cles for pass­ing pro­gres­sive poli­cies, hav­ing enact­ed a wave of labor and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions in recent years. In 2016 alone, for exam­ple, 18 cities approved min­i­mum-wage increases.

Now, cities are ground zero for the resis­tance to the Trump agen­da. Six­ty-eight may­ors signed an open let­ter to Trump in Novem­ber 2016, affirm­ing that ​“each of our cities is com­mit­ting to ambi­tious tar­gets to reduce green­house gas emis­sions, … share lessons and hold each oth­er account­able.” And as Trump attempts to stack his cab­i­net with Wall Street tycoons and anti-union CEOs, cities like Cleve­land and San­ta Fe, N.M., are explor­ing ways to build net­works of work­er coop­er­a­tives and estab­lish munic­i­pal­ly owned banks.

But in order to resist, local gov­ern­ments will have to stand up not only to Trump but to GOP-con­trolled state­hous­es. The for­mer task may actu­al­ly be eas­i­er. Many legal experts say that, under the 10th Amend­ment, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment can­not force states and cities to car­ry out its laws under threat of los­ing fund­ing. On Jan­u­ary 31, cit­ing this ratio­nale, San Fran­cis­co became the first city to file suit against the Trump admin­is­tra­tion for its order to with­hold fund­ing from sanc­tu­ary cities.

Repub­li­can state leg­is­la­tures, how­ev­er, have also gone on the offen­sive against local­ly enact­ed pro­gres­sive poli­cies, and they are in a strong posi­tion— legal­ly and polit­i­cal­ly — to impose their will. The GOP now con­trols both cham­bers of 32 state leg­is­la­tures and the governor’s office in 33 states.

The GOP’s means of attack is tried-and-true: For years, it has cham­pi­oned so-called pre­emp­tion laws, which pro­hib­it local gov­ern­ments from adopt­ing poli­cies that con­flict with those of their state’s — in oth­er words, stop­ping pro­gres­sive changes before they start. In 2011, the Wis­con­sin leg­is­la­ture over­rode Milwaukee’s paid sick leave law, which had passed by bal­lot ini­tia­tive with 69 per­cent of the vote. The rightwing Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Coun­cil quick­ly dis­trib­uted the bill as mod­el leg­is­la­tion for oth­er states. To date, at least 20 oth­er states have suc­cess­ful­ly passed laws that pre­empt local­ly estab­lished min­i­mum wages, most of which also pre­empt­ed paid sick leave laws. In Decem­ber 2016, for exam­ple, Ohio passed a law pre­vent­ing cities from rais­ing their wage floors above the state’s stan­dard, then $8.10 an hour. As a result, Cleve­land scrapped a spe­cial elec­tion to approve a $15-an-hour wage. Ten­nessee has recent­ly passed bans on city laws that aimed to reduce pover­ty, includ­ing paid sick leave and wage theft measures.

It’s worth not­ing that efforts to pre­empt local pro­gres­sivism aren’t lim­it­ed to the GOP. In late Jan­u­ary, Dereck Davis, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic state leg­is­la­tor in Mary­land, intro­duced a bill that would ban cities and coun­ties from rais­ing their min­i­mum wages. Indus­try has adopt­ed sim­i­lar tac­tics. Last spring, for exam­ple, oil and gas inter­ests suc­cess­ful­ly sued to block local frack­ing bans in Col­orado on the grounds that they con­flict­ed with the state constitution.

As the Trump admin­is­tra­tion pledges to ​“open up” domes­tic ener­gy pro­duc­tion, it’s not hard to imag­ine com­mu­ni­ties that try to reg­u­late gas and oil drilling will like­ly be hit with fur­ther pre­emp­tion laws. Red states could go even fur­ther and attempt to inflict col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment via fund­ing cuts on rebel­lious cities, even if the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is ulti­mate­ly barred from doing so. It’s not just Texas Gov. Abbott’s feud with Travis Coun­ty; last year, in a sweep­ing attempt to sti­fle pro­gres­sive mea­sures, Ari­zona passed a bill cut­ting off shared rev­enue to towns and cities that enact poli­cies in con­flict with state law. In response, the may­or of Phoenix, Greg Stan­ton, recent­ly told Slate that ​“we believe strong­ly that it’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and we’re going to adopt pub­lic poli­cies that are smart for our cities, regardless.”

Rules for rad­i­cal cities

Such bat­tles hinge on a com­plex set of legal and polit­i­cal ques­tions around local auton­o­my. ​“For the state to say you’re only allowed to pro­tect your­self as much as we say you can — that vio­lates their right to self-gov­ern­ment,” says Ben Price, nation­al orga­niz­ing direc­tor for the Com­mu­ni­ty Envi­ron­men­tal Legal Defense Fund. The Penn­syl­va­nia-based group works from a rights-based par­a­digm — the rights of com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect their peo­ple and the nat­ur­al resources on which they depend — and has col­lab­o­rat­ed with more than 200 com­mu­ni­ties on laws that ban frack­ing, fac­to­ry farm­ing, water pri­va­ti­za­tion and oth­er haz­ards to com­mu­ni­ty well-being.

The U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion doesn’t assign spe­cif­ic pow­ers to cities, but the guid­ing prin­ci­ple has long been ​“Dillon’s Rule,” named after a judge who, in the 1860s, affirmed that the activ­i­ties of cities must be sanc­tioned by the state gov­ern­ment. The rule priv­i­leges state over city author­i­ty if there is a rea­son­able doubt.

That’s the basis for state pre­emp­tion laws, but Dillon’s Rule is less fixed and absolute than it may appear. There is room to maneu­ver on a case-by-case basis, and some cities have had pre­lim­i­nary suc­cess launch­ing legal chal­lenges to pre­emp­tion laws. The high stakes in this fight are clear right now in Kansas City, Mo., where labor activists won a court bat­tle in Jan­u­ary that allows their peti­tion for a $15-an-hour wage to be put to vot­ers, despite a 2015 state law pro­hibit­ing cities from enact­ing their own min­i­mum wages. Vot­ers will decide the fate of the peti­tion in April. Even if suc­cess­ful, it is cer­tain to face a law­suit, whether from the state or from busi­ness interests.

The legal sys­tem isn’t the only hope for push­ing back against state pre­emp­tion laws. The court of pub­lic opin­ion and the force of polit­i­cal pres­sure count for some­thing, too.

Andrew Gillum, may­or of Tal­la­has­see, Fla., hopes to chan­nel those ener­gies through the Cam­paign to Defend Local Solu­tions (CDLS), an ini­tia­tive he found­ed in ear­ly Jan­u­ary. He envi­sions CDLS as a resource that ​“col­lects the expe­ri­ences and voic­es of law­mak­ers and school board mem­bers and may­ors and city coun­cil mem­bers who are all expe­ri­enc­ing what it feels like to sit under the thumbprint of leg­is­la­tors who are attempt­ing to take pow­er from local gov­ern­ments.” The day after Trump issued his exec­u­tive order threat­en­ing to pun­ish sanc­tu­ary cities, CDLS put out a state­ment say­ing that it would do every­thing it could to defend them.

Gillum is being per­son­al­ly sued by gun-rights groups for not repeal­ing city gun-con­trol reg­u­la­tions that con­flict with state law. The groups lost their case in 2015. It is now being heard by a court of appeals. ​“My fear is that there is no end to what issues these folks decide to pre­empt us on,” he says. The push for local ini­tia­tives has at least two pow­er­ful, gal­va­niz­ing argu­ments on its side. One is that cities are putting into prac­tice the tra­di­tion­al wis­dom that local gov­ern­ment is the best form of gov­ern­ment. ​“Frankly, a while ago, that was a reg­u­lar talk­ing point of con­ser­v­a­tives,” says Gillum.

A sec­ond pow­er­ful argu­ment against pre­emp­tion is that the laws are deeply and aggres­sive­ly racist, giv­en the demo­graph­ics involved: State leg­is­la­tures, rep­re­sent­ing large­ly white pop­u­la­tions, impose their will on urban areas with high per­cent­ages of minori­ties. ​“It’s sort of the old school, South­ern, Jim Crow racism — pre­vent­ing peo­ple of col­or from self-gov­ern­ing,” says Sam Munger, direc­tor of strate­gic engage­ment at State Inno­va­tion Exchange, a non­prof­it devot­ed to work­ing with state leg­is­la­tures on pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion. In the case of Cleve­land, for exam­ple, the state’s pop­u­la­tion is about 83 per­cent white and 13 per­cent African Amer­i­can. The city’s pop­u­la­tion, how­ev­er, is about 35 per­cent white and 50 per­cent African Amer­i­can. The high-pro­file bat­tle over sanc­tu­ary cities will like­ly make the racism of the state and fed­er­al pre­emp­tion efforts all the more explicit.

Pre­empt­ing the preemptors

If Texas is any indi­ca­tion, the attempt to pre­empt sanc­tu­ary cities could also help mobi­lize stronger local coali­tions. The grav­i­ty of the threat demands — and is inspir­ing — a new resourcefulness.

Texas activists have faced hos­til­i­ty from the GOP-dom­i­nat­ed state for years. In 2011 and 2015, the gov­er­nor want­ed to ban sanc­tu­ary cities, but bills to do so were defeat­ed in the leg­is­la­ture. Now Gov. Abbott’s retal­i­a­tion has the force of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment behind it. But the coali­tion that came togeth­er to defeat the 2011 and 2015 bills is still intact.

It con­sists pri­mar­i­ly of immi­grant-advo­ca­cy groups; busi­ness inter­ests that rely on immi­grant labor; some local law enforce­ment offi­cials; and faith lead­ers, includ­ing Lati­no evan­gel­i­cal Christians.

“Find­ing the untapped voice is impor­tant,” says Adri­ana Cade­na, coor­di­na­tor for Reform Immi­gra­tion for Texas Alliance, a coali­tion of immi­grant-rights groups that helped defeat the pair of state bills. She says that Lati­no evan­gel­i­cal pas­tors, usu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with right-wing pol­i­tics, proved to be that ​“untapped voice” in those fights. Hun­dreds of them came to Austin to tes­ti­fy against the bills.

Undoc­u­ment­ed activists point out that exist­ing sanc­tu­ary city poli­cies are far from per­fect. They often, for exam­ple, exclude those with crim­i­nal records from pro­tec­tion, per­pet­u­at­ing what many say is a harm­ful divi­sion between ​“good” and ​“bad” immi­grants. But defend­ing local democ­ra­cy is a cru­cial first step if activists are to suc­ceed in pres­sur­ing elect­ed munic­i­pal offi­cials to adopt more com­pre­hen­sive poli­cies for eco­nom­ic, social and envi­ron­men­tal justice.

A sim­i­lar real­iza­tion helped mobi­lize a broad coali­tion to defeat a pre­emp­tion law last year in New Orleans. In 2015, the city passed a ​“Hire NOLA” ordi­nance that requires con­trac­tors on pub­lic projects in excess of $150,000 to make a good faith effort to hire a min­i­mum num­ber of ​“dis­ad­van­taged” Orleans Parish res­i­dents, includ­ing the home­less, sin­gle par­ents, the chron­i­cal­ly unem­ployed and peo­ple who earn less than half the medi­an income for the area.

A bill to pre­empt the ordi­nance was intro­duced by a state sen­a­tor and unan­i­mous­ly approved by a state sen­ate com­mit­tee in April 2016. A coali­tion of civic lead­ers, faith groups, labor orga­ni­za­tions and human-rights groups, how­ev­er, refused to give ground, launch­ing a series of ral­lies, let­ter-writ­ing cam­paigns and lob­by­ing efforts. The coali­tion includ­ed groups who hadn’t been involved in pass­ing the local-hire law but real­ized that set­ting a prece­dent of pre­emp­tion could hurt their issues as well. At a Sen­ate com­mit­tee hear­ing, for exam­ple, sev­er­al advo­cates for the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty tes­ti­fied that the pre­emp­tion law could pre­vent local com­mu­ni­ties from pass­ing their own laws to pro­tect sex­u­al minori­ties. The bill was killed in the House after the Sen­ate had passed it.

Sam Munger says it will be key, going for­ward, to orga­nize around these kinds of eco­nom­ic jus­tice issues that have broad local sup­port. But it’s also cru­cial to keep an eye on the big­ger pic­ture: The GOP and cor­po­ra­tions are per­fect­ing strate­gies to shut down progress nationwide.

“It’s impor­tant to keep [this] dynam­ic in mind,” he says. ​“Oth­er­wise, it’s hard to see this for what it is — an orga­nized, pre­med­i­tat­ed tac­tic that’s repro­duced by the same com­pa­nies and con­ser­v­a­tive enti­ties again and again.”