Oklahoma clamps down on democracy.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: Essay

Once upon a time, Republicans were big fans of local democracy. Barry Goldwater wrote in his book The Conscience of a Conservative that "individual liberty depends on decentralized government."

And while Ronald Reagan respected the need for federal and state government to guard against "tyranny by individuals," where "the strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood," he made his political name arguing against too much "consolidation" of authority in distant governmental bureaucracies. Reagan warned against a circumstance where "all of the rules become uniform," suggesting that citizens needed the flexibility to experiment with different policies, regulations, and tax structures.

So is it possible to square those sentiments with a new Oklahoma law--enacted by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed in April by Republican Governor Mary Fallin--to prevent citizens from enacting local policies, regulations, and tax structures that they believe will improve the circumstances of working families?

Of course not.

What's happened in Oklahoma is a classic assault on the idea that, within the reasonable bounds required to preserve basic rights and protections, communities should have a good deal of freedom to experiment with new approaches to solving old problems. Clamping down on local democracy has nothing to do with old-school conservatism or the Main Street values that animated the Republican Party through much of its history.

This isn't conservatism. This is corporatism.

Oklahoma Republicans are taking the side of major corporations-particularly those that operate chains of restaurants and big-box stores--with an eye toward ensuring that voters in Oklahoma cities cannot enact living-wage ordinances, paid (or even unpaid) sick-leave protections, and other initiatives that have been deemed to be entirely constitutional and legitimate exercises in local self-governance.

Fallin and the legislature jumped into action after labor and community groups began talking about local initiatives to raise the minimum wage. That's hardly a radical idea, considering that President Obama used a portion of his latest State of the Union Address to urge local officials and citizens to take the lead, saying, "To every mayor, governor, and state legislator in America, I say, you don't have to wait for Congress to act; Americans will support you if you take this on."

The idea gained traction in Oklahoma City, where earlier this year the Central Oklahoma...