Intergovernmental Relations in State Constitutional Law: A Historical Overview

In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the relationship between local governments and their states could have been conceptualized in terms of four competing models of legitimacy: (1) custom and practice, (2) community autonomy, (3) corporate status, and (4) subordination to the sovereign. The implications for local autonomy and state-local relations of accepting each of these models is discussed in this article. Historically, the triumph of the theory of state hegemony over local government was reflected in judicial adoption of Dillon's Rule, the doctrine of implied preemption, and the idea that local governments have no rights under a state constitution. Recent state-court cases recognizing the capacity of local governments to assert procedural, dignitary, and substantive claims against the state, however, may signal the demise of the theory that local governments are merely creatures of their states and may herald a reconceptualization of the meaning of local autonomy.