Among news items from the Minnesota Legislature last week were two that touched on a broader matter: Which decisions should be mandated from a higher level of government, and which left to local control?

The question is perennial. It arises on issues from the minimum wage to the legal age for buying tobacco. General opinion has it that Republicans are more likely to support local prerogative, and Democrats, top-down directives. In the recent examples, however, those roles were reversed, with Republican legislators looking to exert state influence over big-city police staffing and DFLers proposing to let municipalities decide individually whether to ban certain pesticides within their borders.

The policing question is the more heated of the two. Noting an increased incidence of violent crime in parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul — and arguing that people should feel safe in the metro area’s core cities whether they live in, work in or visit them — Republican legislators are developing a set of responses. One of the proposals threatens to withhold state aid if the two cities don’t put an “adequate” number of officers to work near “regional or statewide” sports and entertainment facilities.

The second example is a bill introduced by state Rep. Jean Wagenius, DFL-Minneapolis, that would give municipalities their first chance in 30 years to deny the use of certain pesticides that have led to population losses among pollinators like bees and butterflies. That, of course, could lead to different rules in different cities, a situation the bill tries to mitigate by restricting the bans, in all-or-nothing fashion, to a list of “pollinator–lethal” pesticides kept by the state.

Both the policing and pesticide issues are worthy of thorough debate. For today, we’d like merely to offer a way of considering questions of jurisdiction.

Debates over policy are often inconsistent, and debates over consistency are often insincere. Parties tend to argue for whatever general principle happens to advance the current policy they’re pushing.

There’s nothing wrong with inconsistency, however, if it’s in service not to what’s politically convenient but rather to what’s effective. So key questions about local control might be: when is a patchwork of laws preferable to a blanket approach (answer: when it can foster a competition of ideas that will allow the best solution to come to light), and under what circumstances are coercive measures from a higher jurisdiction warranted (answer: when there’s a clear consensus solution, and it’s being neglected).

From that framework, neither the policing nor pesticide proposals would pass their respective tests.

All cities develop budgets and set staffing levels while possessing better local knowledge than the Legislature has — and, we dare say, more fleetness of foot. State lawmakers have a legitimate interest in the well-being of Minnesota’s biggest cities, but there isn’t a broad formula they can apply that can “adequately” reflect urban idiosyncrasies and shifting trends.

With the pesticide ban, meanwhile, there’s no point wondering whether one city can come up with a better idea than another. The pesticides are deadly wherever insects are. (Which, in a fine conundrum, is why they were developed in the first place.)

As we say, jurisdictional questions aren’t the only aspect of either issue. But considering them may, as a starting point, clarify needs and motivations.

 

— Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 21