Conservatives suddenly love big government when it comes to punishing blue cities
Conservatives suddenly love big government — when it comes to punishing blue cities for passing progressive local laws
Leading a wave, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott even suggests states should ban cities from having regulatory powers
Amanda Marcotte Thursday, Mar 23, 2017 03:59 AM CST
For decades now, exaltation of small government has been a conservative talking point. It’s not, conservatives would strenuously claim, that they objected to federal efforts to protect civil rights or create a nationwide social safety net. It’s just that state and local leaders are so much better equipped to understand the needs of their constituents — and the bigger and further away the government entity, the more out of touch it will be. Smaller and more local government is better, conservatives insisted, and having bigger government entities usurp local decision-making power is a violation of our country’s founding principles.
Well, that’s how the argument used to go, anyway. It was employed by conservatives to justify everything from racial discrimination to teaching creationism in schools, while waving the local-is-better flag.
But recently, that’s changed — a lot. Conservatives are starting to sour on the concept of local control, so much so that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a leading figure on the Republican far right, recently gave a speech to the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute in which he suggested that Texas should pass “a broad-based law” that would “pre-empt local regulations.”
Wait, what? Conservatives are supposed to be the small government guys. Suddenly you’ve got one of the most right-wing Republican governors in the country denouncing local control and arguing that Big Brother should pass broad legislation stripping basic powers from local leaders to do things like pass smoking ordinances or regulate a city’s minimum wage.
https://www.salon.com/2017/03/23/conservatives-suddenly-love-big-government-when-it-comes-to-punishing-blue-cities-for-passing-progressive-local-laws/
