2018 Urban Research Award: Cities in the Realm of State Preemption Laws

Media accounts and political organizations have increasingly highlighted a surge of state preemption laws that restrict the autonomy of cities. Political Science Ph.D. candidate Luisa Godinez Puig will investigate the validity of said surge to prove if preemption laws have increased over time and, if so, which cities within the United States have been most affected by them. Her research seeks to accomplish the following:

• Trace the real fluctuation of preemption laws over time, by state, by topic and by the partisan composition of state legislatures.
• Explore the effects of partisan gerrymandering on the fluctuation of state preemption laws, as well as its general consequences on urban policy making.
• Trace the diffusion of preemption laws in-between states.

Her research will contribute to the larger debate on federalism and use of centralization tools over time by both political parties and different levels of government. Godinez Puig will use a combination of secondary research and primary survey data for her analysis. Her primary data will come from her interviews with a sample of legislators from states across the U.S.

Publications and Additional Awards

Godinez Puig, L., Lusk, K., Glick, D., Einstein, K., Palmer, M., Fox, S., & Wang, M. (2021). “Perceptions of Public Health Priorities and Accountability Among US Mayors.” Public Health Reports, 161–171.

Selection as a 2022-2024 Equity Scholar at the Urban Institute. Read more.

View more projects funded through our Early Stage Urban Research Awards