The nation's governors took strong and decisive action in responding to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, often directly affecting their local governments. These actions allow us to examine this question: Will governors' actions in an unprecedented emergency situation centralize the authority of the state or rely on local governments to deal with localized problems? Additionally, what factors affect those decisions? We examine all governors' executive orders affecting local governments in the first five months of the 2020 pandemic. We find that preemption did occur, especially in the early months of the pandemic. States that gave their localities more autonomy were associated with preemption throughout the pandemic; the governor's party affiliation and her ideological match with local officials were associated with greater preemption in some phases of the pandemic but not others.
The architecture of fiscal federalism in the United States represents an obstacle for prompt and comprehensive policy responses to economic crises, especially by subnational levels of government. As both a public health and economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has put unique fiscal pressures on subnational governments. This article reviews the pandemic's fiscal effects on these governments, as well as the federal government's response. By comparing the response to the COVID-19 crisis during the Trump administration with the response to the Great Recession during the Obama administration, we show that while the speed and magnitude of federal aid was unprecedented in 2020, it was nevertheless conditional in nature and beset by familiar political and institutional obstacles. Despite major fiscal pressures, state revenues rebounded earlier than expected, in part due to the relaxation of public health measures and the collection of taxes from online transactions; yet, state resources remained strained throughout the year, especially in states reliant on the hospitality and the oil sectors. And while local property taxes were buoyed by a surging housing market, cities and counties were confronted with declining revenue from other sources and intense emergency spending needs. Thus, despite unprecedented levels of federal support for state and local governments, the legacies of "fend for yourself" federalism live on.