Cities in American federalism: evidence on state- local government conflict from a survey of Mayors
- 2017
- p.599-621.
- Fall
Previous scholarship on American federalism has largely focused on the national government's increasingly conflictual relationship with the states. While some studies have explored the rise of mandates at the state level, there has been comparatively less attention on stateヨlocal relationships. Using a new survey of mayors, we explore variations in local government attitudes towards their state governments. We find some evidence that, regardless of partisanship, mayors in more conservative states are unhappy about state funding and-especially-regulations. More strikingly, we also uncover a partisan mismatch in which Democratic mayors provide especially negative ratings of their state's funding andラeven more stronglyラregulations. These findings have important implications for stateヨlocal relations as cities continue to become more Democratic and Republicans increasingly dominate state-level contests. - Rep
Mayors - United States Local government - United States Federalism - United States Federalism