Uncooperative federalism is high now and fails---the CP empowers RWEs (Right Wing Extremists).

RWE attitudes among sheriffs represent a core threat to the functioning of federalism in the United States, particularly during a time of crisis and tension. RWE primes sheriffs’ resistance by ordaining the office as the ultimate authority under the Constitution. Federalism relies on the cooperation of units of government. The COVID-19 crisis revealed the extent of the dysfunction of uncooperative federalism (Bulman-Pozen and Gerken 2008). During COVID-19, sheriffs turned uncooperative federalism into a highly contentious relationship in county-level politics. Following the course of radicalization among sheriffs over the last half-century, we document current RWE attitudes and demonstrate a robust relationship between RWE and sheriffs’ unwillingness to enforce mandates. We find consistent evidence that sheriffs’ RWE is associated with the sheriff reporting that they refused to enforce mask mandates, even controlling for the political characteristics of the county and the sheriff. Future research might consider the ways that electoral pressures during this time might push sheriffs to change their stance. While Sheriff Adam Fortney (Snohomish County, Washington) faced two separate recall efforts because of his refusal to enforce COVID-related restrictions in his county (Pailthrop 2021), it is possible that many sheriffs’ constituents largely ignored this behavior, making it relatively cost-free to engage in these stances. When we examine if RWE is associated with releasing individuals from jail during COVID (a far less politicized measure and one that involved fewer mandates from other governments), we found no relationship. Other research might consider whether the source of the mandate (local, state, or national) matters in shaping sheriffs' resistance. When local governments passed eviction bans during the COVID-19 crisis (Farris, Holman, and Sullivan 2022), did sheriffs resist these efforts as well?