Bob Marshall urges YES on Douglas County 200, NO on 1A
Did conservative commentator and Colorado Union of Taxpayers President Kim Monson's show this morning regarding the effort to go to five commissioners in Douglas County. KIM ENDORSES THE MOVE TO FIVE COMMISSIONERS AND TO ELECT THEM BY DISTRICT. That was not always true but after months of looking at it and understanding how the structure of the government is more important than who is running it, she fully endorses five by district even with the added fiscal cost as it is penny wise but pound foolish to have grown the government exponentially, but not the representation or oversight.
Douglas County Questions 200, 201, and 1A Set the Number of Commissioners and How They Are Elected
Bob Marshall, a Democratic state representative from Highlands Ranch, said Douglas County’s commissioner question began as a citizen petition, which the county clerk and recorder certified for the ballot on August 12, as a Kim Monson Newsroom report details. Question 200 asks whether to expand the Board of County Commissioners from three members to five, and its ballot title, which the commissioners set, puts the cost at $760,000 to $1.3 million a year. Marshall said petitioners had estimated about $500,000 and that the commissioners chose the higher figures to scare voters away.
The Colorado Constitution lets a county of more than 70,000 residents elect up to five commissioners, Marshall said. If Question 200 passes, Question 201 asks whether all five would be elected by district, each by that district’s voters alone, or three by district and two countywide. The commissioners then referred Question 1A, which would elect all five countywide. Marshall’s protest against 1A failed 2 to 1, with board chair George Teal dissenting, and the lawsuit he filed afterward has not removed it from the ballot.
Marshall urged a yes vote on 200 and a no vote on 1A. He prefers five commissioners elected by district but has not pushed voters on 201, because he said the two countywide members under the other option could still vote as a bloc with one district commissioner and freeze out the rest. The 2026 Colorado Voter’s Guide recommends a yes vote on 200, a vote for five district commissioners on 201, and a no vote on 1A.
Marshall’s own precinct, outside the Front Range Passenger Rail District, received Ballot Issue 7A, the district’s sales tax and debt question. He said clerks should count 7A votes only from precincts inside the district, as the Colorado Department of State directed on October 7, according to a Kim Monson Newsroom report.
“Once you get a big diverse county with diverse interests in different parts of the county, you really need someone looking out for your own interests and not the interests of everyone because people get left out.”
Bob Marshall, Colorado State Representative
Comments