Talk:Home rule in the United States

Laymen section needed
As a not-smart person I read this entire article and I have no idea what it means or what it's talking about. The first sentence should really be simple English. --2600:8807:8280:B1F:B01C:CD52:5E2A:BDBB (talk) 06:15, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Resolve discrepancies between NLC and article
Re: "The National League of Cities identifies 39 Dillon's Rule states, 9 states that follow Dillon's Rule but also permit home rule for some jurisdictions, and 10 home rule states". These numbers don't make much sense, and there is only a generic search URL given for NCL's web site. In addition, the article doesn't distinguish between the NCL view of home rule for cities, and the National Association of Counties reference (currently 404 not found) which is used for the table and presumably relates to the status of counties instead. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 15:46, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Using the link given, you can count the states in each category. The source contradicts itself when it says "Thirty-nine states employ Dillon's Rule to all municipalities" and then proceeds to list 31 states and then separately list 8 states that it says only apply Dillon's Rule to certain municipalities. We should probably assume that they left out a phrase like "to all or some municipalities." It's a poorly worded source. I made the edit and removed the clarification tag. I did not check my edit for consistency with the chart in the section below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.108.88.135 (talk) 06:35, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

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Suggestions
I'm not sure if it's just because it was meant for others to fill in the details or not, but I'm unsure of why we don't have a "Limited" classification for Dillon's Rule states. And quite frankly, I imagine for most states there is no clear delineation between Home Rule and Dillon's Rule. As an example, Michigan is listed as being both, but it's more complicated than that. All cities, some villages, and literally two counties are home rule charter jursidictions. Everything else is governed under general state law. Also, while these jurisdictions are given more latitude than in most states from what I hear, the Home Rule City Act lays out pretty specific parameters in some regards.

So then how would one qualify Michigan? I'd say it's limited in both categories. And honestly, even the states listed as not being Dillon's Rule states it seems hard for me to believe that they could pass local ordinances that could go against state law. Dillon's Rule generally rules the day when it comes court's ruling in state and cities disputes with very few exceptions. I'd say that EVERY state that allows some home rule is thus "Lmiited," then. That is unless the discussion is narrowed to what states consider "local issues." In that case, I imagine there are a few states that don't have any legal provisions that would allow them to stop cities from enacting certain ordinances, though I imagine they could fairly easily pass laws, themselves, blocking cities. --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:39, 28 July 2020 (UTC)