Cities don't have the same kind of relationship to state governments that states do to the federal government. Legally, cities (apart from charter cities) are j

Cities don't have the same kind of relationship to state governments that states do to the federal government. Legally, cities (apart from charter cities) are just an administrative detail of the state government: they exist solely to further the state government's policy goals and have no independent existence (or democratic mandate) outside that telos. Cities might be able to sue if there's a specific state law being violated like CEQA, but if that's not the case and the cities are just making a generic complaint that the state is overriding their control, the state can tell them to shove it and there's nothing the city can do.