Douglas County is embarking on a nearly yearlong effort to establish home-rule authority — a power that leaders in the conservative suburban county hope to wield as a defensive weapon against what they consider legislative overreach by state lawmakers.
In recent years, the county south of Denver has engaged in a series of legal battles with the state over property tax valuations, state immigration laws and the validity of public health orders, like mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic. The county has filed lawsuits and issued declarations of dissent against Colorado’s Democratic leadership.
Now its leaders will ask voters to beef up its standing.
Establishing home-rule authority “will allow us to keep what we have and allow us to push back on the state on things we really care about in this county,” Commissioner George Teal told The Denver Post. “We like to talk about local control in this state, and yet the mechanism for local control is home rule. Let’s put our money where our mouth is.”
The board of commissioners adopted a resolution Tuesday that will kickstart Douglas County’s transition from a statutory form of government to home-rule status. That authority imbues local governments in Colorado — typically cities and towns — with specific powers to run their own affairs and exempting them from certain state laws.
The effort, the first of its kind in nearly 50 years, will include the establishment of a 21-member charter commission — which requires the approval of voters at a June 24 special election — to draw up the county’s home-rule charter. Voters will then be asked to approve the charter this November.
If the measure passes, home-rule authority will take effect on Jan. 1.
Douglas County would become just the third of the state’s 64 counties to possess home-rule authority as a standalone county. The other two are Weld and Pitkin counties. Denver and Broomfield, which operate as dual city-and-county governments, have home-rule powers by virtue of their status as municipalities.
The state maintains preeminence over matters of statewide concern, county attorney Jeff Garcia said Tuesday, but home-rule power gives local governments a better chance of asserting local control over issues like taxation, land use, zoning and governance structure.
“Home rule gives you enhanced standing to challenge the state,” Garcia said.
Legal challenges of state
Last year alone, Douglas County sued the state Board of Equalization over the board’s decision to overrule the county’s attempt to provide $4 billion in property tax relief to its residents, while months later filing suit against the state over two immigration laws. Those laws limit the level of aid local law enforcement agencies can render to federal immigration authorities when it comes to the arrest and detention of migrants.
Earlier this year, just before President Donald Trump returned to office, Douglas County’s commissioners adopted a resolution backing his plans to deport immigrants living illegally in the country.
The county’s legal volleys haven’t found much success in the courts. A Denver judge dismissed much of Douglas County’s challenge on the property tax matter, while a different Denver judge struck down the county’s immigration lawsuit in December, ruling that the county didn’t have standing to bring the action against the state.
Home-rule authority, Garcia said, would give the county a better chance of prevailing in court because legal standing wouldn’t pose the same impediment as it does under statutory rule, where counties must follow state law to a tee.
“We’d be more than happy to have that argument in court,” he said.
During a press conference shortly after the commissioners’ approval of the home-rule charter resolution, District Attorney George Brauchler said he saw an increase in local control as a way of shoring up public safety. Brauchler, elected last fall to lead the newly formed 23rd Judicial District, accused Democratic leadership at the State Capitol of being soft on crime and said it was critical to have more autonomy to go after criminals in Douglas County.
“Government is best that is closest to the people, and that’s what this represents,” he said.
County leaders even envision home-rule authority allowing them to set aside the state’s 10-cent grocery bag fee, which lawmakers mandated in a bill passed four years ago. Teal said he could see home-rule power being used to shore up local land-use policies in Douglas County to counter state mandates and challenge gun-control laws being considered in the Capitol.
“When we get gun-control laws that come down, we’re going to have latitude,” the commissioner said. “When you talk about gun control, that’s a big issue for folks in Douglas County.”
How much power would county gain?
Paul Teske, dean of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver, isn’t so sure that Douglas County will be able to use its hoped-for newfound powers to meaningfully bend policy in the face of state law. He characterized the county’s move Tuesday as the “politics of defiance.”
Home-rule authority, he said, typically applies to more pedestrian matters, like tweaking the organization and structure of county government.
“There’s a history of precedence of states being able to preempt local decisions on important policy issues,” Teske said. “This move seems to mainly be a political statement asserting some independence from a state legislature that has gone further left in recent sessions.”
State Rep. Bob Marshall, who represents a swath of Highlands Ranch in northern Douglas County, wondered why the issue was going to voters in an off-year election, “which will ensure ultra-low turnout (that’s) likely not representative of the will of the people.”
“They could have easily done this in 2024 — or wait until 2026 to ensure a more representative decision from Douglas County’s citizens …” Marshall, a Democrat, told The Post.
Weld County was the first Colorado county to go through the process of establishing home-rule authority, which took effect there on the first day of 1976. According to the county’s website, some of the benefits of the new status included upping the number of commissioners from three to five, abolishing the position of county surveyor and hiring a full-time county attorney, rather than paying one by the hour.
Pitkin County followed Weld’s lead two years later.
Douglas County’s June special election for the charter commission is projected to cost the county about $500,000 to conduct. If voters sign off on the charter process, the second vote in November won’t incur additional costs for the county because a coordinated election is already scheduled then.
Asked if the cost of the special election in a fiscally conservative county bothers him, Teal was adamant that it doesn’t.
“It’s money well spent,” he said.
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