CPR: Douglas County voters decide Tuesday on home rule. What they could get from it is up for debate

Organizers with the No On Home Rule effort address volunteers ahead a voter canvassing effort, May 31, 2025. From CPR

From Colorado Public Radio By Stephanie Wolf and Bente Birkeland, June 19, 2025

Voters in Douglas County are deciding whether to become a home rule county. Ballots are due next week, and the issue has stirred up a lot of strong feelings amidst competing claims about what it would mean for this fast-growing part of Colorado. 

The county’s three commissioners, who voted unanimously in late March to put home rule on the ballot for a June 24 special election, have said this is about local control. They believe establishing home rule will allow the county to assert more independence from the Democratic-controlled state legislature and give them stronger legal standing to push back against state laws that they don’t agree with. 

“We see every year the state legislature encroaching in on traditionally local issues with state blanket mandates and I do see the people of Douglas County being aware of that,” county commissioner George Teal told CPR News.

The county sheriff has also shown his support, saying it would be good for public safety.

But some residents are skeptical, questioning whether county home rule can actually deliver what their elected officials are promising and concerned about how the entire process has unfolded. There are simply too many unanswered questions, opponents say.

“We didn't know this was coming, and so most of the community has no idea,” said Kelly Mayr, who’s part of a group known as Stop the Power Grab. “They are trying to change our governmental structure in Douglas County and we don't even know what that could mean for us.”

The general idea of home rule is that it allows more control for certain local issues, like zoning and local government employment. While Colorado’s constitution allows both cities and counties to have home rule, the powers they get from it are different. More than 100 Colorado towns and cities have adopted home rule charters. But there are only two truly home rule counties in Colorado: Weld and Pitkin, both established in the 1970s. (Denver and Broomfield occupy their own hybrid category, as combined city-county governments with home rule.) 

Douglas County’s pitch to voters to join the likes of Weld and Pitkin marks the first time in decades for such an effort. 

In Tuesday’s special election, voters have to answer two questions on their ballot: yes or no on home rule; and, if home rule passes, who do they want on the 21-member commission that will draft a charter laying out how the county will be governed. Voters will then return to the ballot box in November to approve, or reject, that charter...

Read the entire article here or listen to the Purplish Podcast.