2. The government, especially in the US on the federal level should have ZERO say in the matter PERIOD. Yet too many blindly follow along with and accept it more and more. Its absurd.
I'm going to put prudent separation between myself the constitutional question.
Instead, I'll just say that in a life in aviation that started in 1976, I've found that state and local attempts to regulation aviation have, without exception, been idiotic and unworkable. FAA has shown themselves time and time again to be willing to use the voice or reason or the hammer of justice in these cases.
The most recent case I recall was when New York State wanted student pilots in New York to be fingerprinted and obtain State Police background checks before they could take flying lessons, or even a discovery flight.
It was all about revenue, of course. TSA already had their vetting process in place at the time. But the State Police charged $190.00 for fingerprinting back then: and the State Legislature saw a ready supply of people who wanted to learn how to fly (and who therefore presumably had deep pockets) who could help the state balance their budget.
This created havoc for flight schools and FBO's, of course, FAA calmly told them to ignore the state law, explained to the state legislators and our idiot governor why they couldn't regulate flight training; and when that didn't work, took the state to court and won.
The state has also tried to add their own requirements for SIDA access passes. They lost that fight, too, even an an airport that they own. Aviation, by its nature, is interstate commerce; and you can't have 50 different sets of rules governing people whose jobs take them from state to state.
In the case of UAV operations, there is almost no controlled airspace within a 50-mile radius of where I live. So as far as FAA is concerned, I can fly pretty much wherever I want.
Except I can't.
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (who own a lot of reservoirs around here) prohibit drone operations on their land. They don't even like you carrying a drone through their land on the way to someplace else where it's legal. They can't do anything about it if you have an access permit, but some of the DEP cops will harass you for it.
The State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation also prohibits drone operations in parks and historic sites unless you pay to apply for a permit (which usually is denied). Technically, that means anyplace where the state has planted a plaque declaring it an historic site is off-limits.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation also prohibits drone operations in some classifications of state forest without special permission.
In other words, the only entities within a 50-mile radius from me who are restricting my drone operations are the State Conservation Department, the State Parks Department, and the government of a city more than a hundred miles away. State and local governments are telling me where I can operate, not the FAA.
You can believe and espouse whatever you like about the Constitution. I took an oath to defend that right when I was 17, and it didn't come with an expiration date. But from a pragmatic perspective and based on experience, allowing state and local legislatures to regulate aviation would be a nightmare. Ignorance, unfortunately, has never stopped legislators from legislating.
At least FAA is staffed overwhelmingly by people who are passionate and knowledgeable about aviation. Your typical city council or state legislature... not so much.