"Cleveland Sues Ohio to Keep Its Trans Fat Ban."

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says:

"The health and well-being of Cleveland is the responsibility of the City of Cleveland, and we are taking proactive steps to help make everyone in Cleveland healthier...

"The state's subsequent amendment to the Ohio Revised Code taking away our ability to enforce this important health regulation is yet another attempt by the state to erode the Home Rule Authority that we have a constitutional right to"...

Is this an issue for decentralized decisionmaking or not? Whatever you think of this kind of nanny-state — nanny city? — law, the issue here is what level of government should make the decision. Why can't Cleveland be a laboratory of democracy? Why shouldn't "a single courageous state city... if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country state?"

You may think it's a stupid idea, but the effect of the stupidity is visited on the people of the city who have voted for the elected officials who chose it. If you oppose paternalism, shouldn't you oppose the paternalism of Ohio officials telling the locals what stupid ideas they can impose on themselves? And what if we're wrong about the stupidity of the law? We may learn from the experiment Cleveland has chosen to perform on itself.