Colorado has term limits for county elected offices, but permits the voters of a county to modify or ease those term limits if they wish. Recently the Adams County Commissioners voted to ask the voters if they wish to ease term limits for county office. However, the proposed local ballot question was worded to cover the office of District Attorney.
But, Colorado is one of the many states in which not all counties have their own District Attorney. Instead, Adams County is grouped with Broomfield County as a unit, to elect a single District Attorney. Many states follow this policy because there are so many low-population counties in the U.S., it doesn’t make sense to provide a District Attorney for each county.
On September 15, a U.S. District Court Judge ruled orally from the bench that Adams County can’t vote on extending term limits for District Attorney all by itself. The voters of Broomfield County must be involved as well. Since no one in Broomfield County had moved to put the matter to a vote, the ruling is that Adams County can’t vote, all by itself, on whether to extend term limits for District Attorney. The case is Dambman v Long, 09cv-2167.
Strictly speaking, judicial districts are comprised of one or more counties, and both district judges and the district attorney have jurisdiction over the entire district. In some cases, the judges may actually “ride circuit” hearing cases in one county one week, and another county the next, and so on.
There are only 5 counties (of 64) in Colorado where the judicial district is coincident with a single county. It may be that there is no one with authority to call an election to change the term limits for a judicial district, since it really doesn’t have a governing body like a county or city do.
Another factor may be due the fact that Broomfield is a new county (actually a City and County), created from parts of 4 counties, including Adams County. Previous to its creation different parts of the city of Broomfield were subject to different courts and judicial districts. When it became a county, Broomfield County was placed in the same judicial district with Adams County, which previously constituted the entire judicial district. So it may be that in the past that Adams County (including part of what is now Broomfield County) imposed the current term limits on the District Attorney.
The arguments by Adams County appear to be quite bizarre. They argued that they had a first amendment right to ask their voters whether they wanted to change the term limits for their offices, including the DA; and the appropriate time for resolving the legal issue would be when (if) the voters approved the change.
Adams County also claime that those plaintiffs who lived in Broomfield County did not have legal standing, apparently arguing that they were merely holding an election and not actually deciding anything.
The district court enjoined Adams County from asking the question on the ballot (at least as far as the DA) subject to a trial on the merits of the case. But since the election is in November.
Jim, I’m impressed with your knowledge, of this case, and generally.
Many people, including the current DA, gave testimony to the Adams County commissioners regarding the illegality of allowing only part of the political subdivision to vote. The measure would have to be presented to all voters in both Adams and Broomfield counties and worded the same way in both places to be legal. However, the Adams commissioners never approached Broomfield to see if they would put the measure on the ballot. Also, they chose to combine the DA’s office with other offices in a single question. That means Broomfield would not be able to word the question the same way. So the question is: why would they do this, especially with testimony from multiple experts advising against? Well consider this. The current DA is very popular in Adams County. He is also term limited. Although he has publicly stated (in both letter and person) that this question should exclude his position, the voters in Adams would like to see him get another term and would be more likely to pass the measure with his office included. And also consider that the Adams County commissioners who put this question on the ballot would have there own term limits extended also. This appears to be an example of horrible political wrangling, which is why the suit was initiated.
I would only add that the term limits on DAs were added as part of the original constitutional amendment back in 1994 (Article 18, Section 11). Subsection 1 there limits DAs to two terms (DA considered executive officials per a 1980 court ruling) and Subsection 2 outlines the escape clause that the voters of the district can change them for that district (a weird clause that creates the ability to locally amend the state constitution as applied to that district, which might be unconstitutional on uniform government grounds, but nobody has tested it), so the state constitution is on Broomfield’s side in this one, unless Adams County decides that the issue is non-binding and advisory only, which they could do.