Thank you for this. I need to read it a few more times. I honed in on a sentence you wrote at the beginning. "Federal projects are exempt from local zoning laws. The city had no legal recourse." I am familiar with the mechanics of a certain set of federal infrastructure project (public housing) and local zoning laws have been interpreted to apply. There is nuance in the statement about federal projects being exempt from local zoning laws around fascists interpretations. This seems more about the lengths the fascists will go to do whatever they want.
You're right to push on that — it was too sweeping. The legal posture isn't a flat statutory exemption; it's intergovernmental-immunity doctrine, contested by program. Public housing is the cleanest counter-example.
What's distinct about Surprise — and the WEXMAC-TITUS pattern — is that the procurement vehicle is designed to manufacture the federal-direct-use posture that maximizes the exemption claim. DHS doesn't lease from a local operator; it buys outright through a Navy logistics contract. That posture is the input that produces the "no local recourse" output.
So yes — fascists pushing the exemption claim as far as it will go, not a statute that grants it automatically. Mayes (Arizona v. Mullin) and Sherrill/Davenport at Roxbury are both built on that contestation. The architecture is precisely what makes the claim workable even where it isn't statutory.
Thank you for this. I need to read it a few more times. I honed in on a sentence you wrote at the beginning. "Federal projects are exempt from local zoning laws. The city had no legal recourse." I am familiar with the mechanics of a certain set of federal infrastructure project (public housing) and local zoning laws have been interpreted to apply. There is nuance in the statement about federal projects being exempt from local zoning laws around fascists interpretations. This seems more about the lengths the fascists will go to do whatever they want.
You're right to push on that — it was too sweeping. The legal posture isn't a flat statutory exemption; it's intergovernmental-immunity doctrine, contested by program. Public housing is the cleanest counter-example.
What's distinct about Surprise — and the WEXMAC-TITUS pattern — is that the procurement vehicle is designed to manufacture the federal-direct-use posture that maximizes the exemption claim. DHS doesn't lease from a local operator; it buys outright through a Navy logistics contract. That posture is the input that produces the "no local recourse" output.
So yes — fascists pushing the exemption claim as far as it will go, not a statute that grants it automatically. Mayes (Arizona v. Mullin) and Sherrill/Davenport at Roxbury are both built on that contestation. The architecture is precisely what makes the claim workable even where it isn't statutory.
Thank you for the correction.
Federal procurement is the perfect mechanism for them to spin BS and tell you with a straight-face their intent is to make up fake rules.