Preemption in the Intergovernmental Trenches: Explaining Gubernatorial Preemption Style during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governors preempted local governments at unprecedented levels. A rich literature examines state preemption of local governments, but gubernatorial preemption – and the strategies governors use to do so – remain understudied. This paper examines what institutional and political factors influenced governors preemption style during the pandemic by analyzing a dataset of over 1,200 COVID-19 executive orders, classified by their style of preemption: ceiling, floor, or vacuum. Governors in states with high local autonomy rely on ceiling and floor preemptions. Republican governors are likelier to issue ceiling preemptions that bind local governments hands. Governors in states with ideologically dissimilar local governments tend to issue vacuum preemptions. When non-preempting previsions are dropped from the analysis, local autonomy does not significantly affect issuing one type of preemption over another. On the other hand, Republican governors are more likely to issue both ceiling and floor preemptions over vacuum preemptions. Governors in states with high ideological asymmetry are less likely to issue ceiling and floor preemptions over vacuum preemptions. These findings provide insight into gubernatorial behavior, interactions between state and local governments, and how theories of federalism can teach us more about how governments respond to crises.