What are the pros and cons of county home rule?

October 18, 2016 2:48 PM

It is on my ballot. I think the newspaper story used only the county for a source. This is for Bernalillo County, New Mexico, USA.
posted by maurreen to Law & Government (3 answers total)

Best answer: Municipalities in NM already have home rule if they are of a certain size and so choose (which isn't always the case in other states, as the NC legislature has proved over the past few years). The pros and cons of home rule typically come down to the relationship between the state legislature and the county government: do you want the ability to pass local ordinances that can't be overruled at the state level, or to modify or opt out of certain state laws where the power has been granted to do so? There are also structural questions where having a charter might require more ballot initiatives instead of giving the county commission flexibility to make changes. Do you want the county to be given a long leash or a short one?

A specific local concern would be how a home-rule county government interacts with Albuquerque's city government, which already has its own charter. Home rule is often combined with city-county consolidation so there's no overlap of services or conflicting charter provisions for county residents within or outside the city limits. That was part of the original amendment granting the right to a charter, but was removed from the 2014 ballot question further altering the NM constitution.

There was a recent disagreement about putting city ballot questions on the county ballot. Having overlapping city and county charters could complicate local government and raise the question of whether consolidation would be necessary in the future.
posted by holgate at 3:47 PM on October 18, 2016

In my limited experience, home rule initiatives are usually about a local government wanting to impose taxes that the state wouldn't normally allow in order to fund services, or "services", that the state wouldn't normally allow, but that some fraction of the electorate wants, in the expectation that they will receive a disproportionately large amount of the services while paying a disproportionately small portion of the tax. I reflexively vote against them.
posted by Bruce H. at 5:49 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Abq Journal article, in case you haven't seen it.
posted by allelopath at 7:17 PM on October 18, 2016