Act for Public Health: State Limits on Enforcement of Federal Law

About this dataset:

State officers are generally permitted, but not required to, enforce federal laws under the U.S. federal system. Yet throughout COVID-19, a handful of states introduced bills aiming to regulate, and in many cases restrict, the enforcement of federal public health laws.

This longitudinal dataset captures details of legislation seeking to limit the enforcement of federal law introduced between January 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022, in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. This dataset contains parallel, often overlapping records to show multiple bills that may exist at the same time within a given state. States with such records are indicated on the map with an asterisk; individual record responses can be viewed by clicking on the state within the map or table view. Each individual bill is coded as a separate instance and labeled by its bill number. 

This dataset is one of six that were created in collaboration with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Network for Public Health Law as part of the Act for Public Health initiative.