(Community Corner is provided as local contributions from experts in their field as well as local residents.)

DATE: April 14, 2026

CONTACT: Joshua Maynard, DirectColorado@gmail.com, 720-306-1360

The Time is Right for Boulder County Home Rule

Boulder, CO: A citizens’ petition for Boulder County Home Rule” is being circulated by leaders of two local non-profits, Best Democracy and Direct Colorado. For Boulder County, home rule is a big step towards a better Boulder County government.

Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann, speaking at a Best Democracy public meeting held in January at the Longmont Library, noted that the purpose of county home rule is to provide more flexibility over elections and management of county affairs than Colorado counties currently have under State statute” (CRS Section 30-11-101-605). A Boulder County home rule charter will enable Boulder County to meet the challenges of 21st-century democratic governance and provide the framework for systematic changes in democratic governance that enhance functionality, transparency, accountability, citizen access to government, and diversity.

It’s up to our generation to make Boulder County’s government more responsive to and representative of the people of the County. We can do a better job designing a government that includes everyone than they did back in 1861,” stated Jesse Kumin, founder of Best Democracy and one of the two petition sponsors.

The timing of the Boulder County Home Rule grassroots effort is compatible with the Big Tent BoCO” citizens push to increase the number of Boulder County Commissioners from three to five. If the County votes to increase the size of the Commission, a reworking of County management responsibilities and election districts would be required.

A home rule charter includes the election of a special Charter Commission to draft modifications to the County’s statutory charter. The resulting Charter is then placed on the ballot for voters’ approval. The goal of these County charter revisions is to go beyond the State’s minimum requirements: it enables adding flexibility to the county’s authority and election supervision, increasing government transparency and accountability, protecting human and environmental rights, and increasing community engagement and oversight.

Expanded petition rights for citizens are a major benefit of home rule, especially for people living in unincorporated neighborhoods throughout the county. Petitioning is severely restricted at the county level by the state’s boilerplate statutory county charters. Only residents in municipalities have full petition rights – unless their county is home rule.

Going beyond mere representation, petitions add a vehicle for direct democracy, which is important because public sentiment does not always agree with the people in charge. The public can push for changes that are popular and necessary,” stated Josh Maynard, petition co-sponsor and founder of Direct Democracy Colorado and Direct Colorado.

A second major benefit to Boulder County Home Rule is the ability to keep professional talent through direct hire by the County. It creates the option to turn elected positions for Coroner, Treasurer, and Sheriff into professional staff positions. This allows for the retention of good talent and eliminates the need for multiple special elections to extend term limits of qualified and respected staff (as is the case with Boulder’s long-time Sheriff Pelle).

Thirdly, the Boulder County home rule petition sponsors agree, in part, with all three current Commissioners, who publicly disagree over the merits of the Big Tent BoCo’s three to five” petition.

Support for increasing the number of Boulder County Commissioners from three to five is sensible. Since 1861, when the Territorial County charter was established with three elected Commissioners, Boulder’s population and the responsibilities of the County Commission, who oversee a $700+ million budget, have grown.

It is difficult to find times to meet with constituent groups around the County that don’t conflict with the timing of official business meetings of the Board of Commissioners. Voter approval for a five-member Boulder County Commission will mean that more than two Commissioners will be required to make a quorum,” stated Commissioner Stolzmann.

The current quorum requirement for Commissioner meetings pits meeting with constituents against conducting public business, and in recent months led to back-and-forth decision-making. In this case, more elected representatives are one action step towards better representation.

Criticisms of the limitations of going from three to five commissioners, previously voiced by current County Commissioners Levy and Loachamin in a joint statement, have merit.

“Increasing accountability and transparency in government does not come from increasing the size of government; it comes from making systemic changes to elections and governance, which we support,” some former and present Commissioners argued in The Boulder Reporting Lab on February 15, 2026.

True.

Home rule for Boulder County answers that criticism. When placed on the November ballot after garnering 13,000 signatures, Boulder County Home Rule will offer voters a more comprehensive approach to reform than the three-to-five petition drive. It addresses a broader array of issues and can solve additional problems with our county-level government by enabling major reform.

Additionally, problems with the state-mandated county commission election process are real. Achieving diversity of opinion and diverse representation of constituent groups requires a shift to proportional representation for county elections. Current Colorado law leaves county governments stuck with two bad options for county elections.

One bad option is the current voting method, at-large plurality voting. This method has the advantage of unifying county identity; however, it locks out large minority blocks of voters from representation and shifts power away from any minority (racial, political, religious, ideological, and so on). Used extensively in the Jim Crow South, at-large plurality voting has been found to violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (see “Charleston County v. United States” (2004) and “Dillard v. Crenshaw County” (1987).

The other poor option is voting for a single County Commissioner per district. When a single person wins the county district seat, it is a case of “Winner Take All.” While district-based voting enhances the ratio of representatives to voters, it has the disadvantages of promoting provincialism or hyper-localism and fostering “One Party Dominant” counties, in which votes for other than the majority viewpoint are wasted, and third point of view candidates are considered election “spoilers.”

Another major flaw of this single-member district option is the inability to draw district boundaries that represent small but significant pockets of the population, such as rural voters. Political tugs-of-war over boundaries can result in gerrymandered districts or swing districts that are disproportionately attractive to dark money political donors.

There are far better voting methods available to Coloradans that accurately represent voters. Recent statewide election reform, Colorado’s Voter Choice Act (CRS 1-7-1001-1004) fixes the election method biases: it allows cities and towns” to conduct elections by proportional representation using two rank choice voting methods, instant run-off for election of a single candidate to office (i.e. a mayor) and single transferable vote for election of multiple candidates to office (i.e., city council members). Counties were excluded.

The original language of State Reps Bob Marshall and Jennifer Bacon’s bill, HB26-1203, proposed extending the right to elect officials using state-approved voting methods of proportional representation to Colorado’s counties. It has been watered down extensively in the House State, Civic, Military & Veterans Affairs committee to the point where it is hardly worth passage unless fully restored to its original intent.

Meanwhile, a Boulder County home rule charter should include enabling legislation for the election of multiple County Commissioners through rank choice voting – single transferable vote. This would bring a diversity of voices to the County’s Board of Commissioners when the State decides to lift restrictions on voting methods that still apply to counties. Proponents of representative elections are encouraged to lobby their legislators to restore the original language of HB26-1203 to enable accurate representation in Colorado’s county governments.

To learn more about the effort behind Boulder County Home Rule and the possibilities it creates for a better Boulder, members of the public are invited to attend a Best Democracy monthly meeting, held at the Boulder Public Library* at the following dates, times, and locations:

• Saturday, 4/25/26 at 3:00 PM. Main Branch, 1001 Arapahoe Avenue, Arapaho Room
• Thursday, 5/14/26 at 5:30 PM. Meadows Branch, 4800 Baseline Road, Unit C112, Meeting Room.
• Saturday, 5/23/26 at 1:00 PM. Main Branch, Arapaho Room
• Saturday, 6/13/26 at 1:00 PM. Main Branch, Arapaho Room

Members of the public who are registered to vote in Boulder County are urged to sign the ballot petition being circulated by volunteers. Let the people decide by putting the question of whether to form a Boulder County Home Rule Charter Commission on the November ballot.

* Note: This event series is not sponsored or endorsed by Boulder Public Library District.

For more information, please contact Liz@BestDemocracy.org.

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