What is a “Freeholder”?
Freeholders are people elected to write and propose a county charter to the electorate. It is usually a novel experience to be elected as a Freeholder. In all likelihood it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and one which can leave a legacy for generations to come. It can also be a daunting task, knowing you are given charge to change, and perhaps fundamentally change, the governmental structure of your county. In order to give some background on what a charter is, the following is a bit of history about charters with a specific focus on the State of Washington experience.
What is a “Charter”?
Generally speaking, a charter is a mechanism for framing the structure of county government. It establishes a basic law that defines county government, within the limitations of state and federal laws, in terms of powers and duties, rights and responsibilities, and how it will fulfill the needs of its residents. Counties which approve a charter are called “home rule” counties because they have developed their own local, homegrown form of county government. Under home rule, the county government is essentially customized by the local electorate such that it is no longer subject to the “general law” form of county government established by the Washington state constitution in 1889.
History of Charters across the United States
The concept of a charter to change governance has a long history in western culture. During the nineteenth century with the rapid addition of new states to the union, state constitutions often included charter provisions which took the form of general or special acts dictated from state legislatures, usually for city governments. When Washington became a state in 1889, its constitution provided for cities to vote on approving their own charters (see Article XI, Section 10 of the Washington State Constitution). That original provision allowed cities over 20,000 population to adopt a charter, but Amendment No. 40 in 1964 reduced the population threshold to 10,000. In Clark County, the City of Vancouver became the first home rule government when the voters approved its charter in 1952.
Charters for local governments got their wings clipped in 1868 with the establishment of “Judge Dillon’s Rule”, or just “Dillon’s Rule.” Judge John Forrest Dillon (December 25, 1831 – May 6, 1914) was an American jurist who served on both federal and Iowa state courts, and who authored a highly influential treatise on the power of states over municipal governments. In his opinion he wrote;
“Municipal corporations owe their origin to, and derive their powers and rights wholly from, the legislature. It breathes into them the breath of life, without which they cannot exist. As it creates, so may it destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge and control.”
In other words, municipalities only have the powers that are expressly granted to them. Any ambiguities in the legislative grant of power are thus resolved against the municipality so that its powers are narrowly construed. This is still very much how law affecting local government is construed today in the State of Washington.
Whether a city or county, local charters are subordinate to state law. In any case where a municipal charter and a state statute conflict, the state supersedes the charter in the absence of any exceptions granted by the state. This can be different than how charter-state relationships are interpreted in other states where it may depend upon the subject matter of the statute as to which controls. Court decisions in Washington, however, have held that, whenever possible, state law and the provisions of a charter should be construed so as to be consistent with one another (i.e., consistent with state law).
During the industrial revolution, great economic changes in the United States brought even greater social changes. Large numbers of people formerly engaged in rural agriculture began moving into the cities at the same time great waves of immigration were occurring. The result was that municipal governments experienced the chaotic burdens of rapid population and housing growth, public health epidemics, and the pressing needs to build increasing amounts of infrastructure. As the industrial-economic-social revolution roared, governmental conditions in large urban areas became, frankly, deplorable. Bossism, patronage, graft, spoils, lawlessness, poverty, abuse, disease, all of these became commonplace. Cities began to take on a cultural aura of “evil” places.
Given these untenable conditions, coupled with the democratic heritage in the United States, the stage was set for municipal reform. Reformists turned to the concept of home rule as a mechanism for people to gain back control and impose good government on their cities and counties. Instead of just having city and county governmental forms determined by legislatures, which was obviously not proving effective, it was reasoned that governmental vices might be corrected or reduced if the local populace could frame its own charter, at least within the limitations of Dillon’s Rule.
By doing so, they could blunt the industrial revolution’s negative excesses by determining how best to secure representation on the council or commission, provide a reformed means for selecting who to run local government, define the powers that might be exercised, adopt election standards (e.g., partisan or nonpartisan, term lengths, term limits, whether elected by district or by the entire jurisdiction, etc.), and establish specific accounting and auditing controls. With a sense of righteousness on their side, reformist groups took up the fight, and successfully so. The first charter laws were enumerated in the state constitution for Missouri in 1875. From there they quickly spread to most other states throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
History of Charters in Washington State
In Washington, cities above 20,000 population were granted the ability to have home rule charters under the original 1889 constitution, but counties didn’t get that right until Amendment No. 21 was passed in 1948. Interestingly, also approved by the voters that year was constitutional Amendment No. 23, a legislatively-referred proposal to allow a charter to create combined city-county governments (no such city-county government has yet been enacted in Washington, but a city-county attempt was brought to Clark County voters in 1982).
Today, Washington has six county home rule governments. They are (by year of charter approval):
- King County (1968)
- Clallam County (1976)
- Whatcom County (1978)
- Snohomish County (1979)
- Pierce County (1980)
- San Juan County (2005)
Note that King County’s original attempt at a county charter failed in 1952. Meanwhile, there have been at least ten other counties which have attempted to embark on home rule but failed at the polls, including:
- Kitsap County (1971, 2000, and 2002)
- Island County (1976)
- Thurston County (1979, 1986 and 1990 for city-county consolidation)
- Clark County (1982 for city-county consolidation, 1997, and 2002)
- Ferry County (1993 for city-county consolidation)
- Cowlitz County (1998)
- Spokane County (1995)
- Skamania County (1999)
- Yakima County (2011)
- Asotin County (2012)
A city-county combined Freeholder election is on the ballot in Asotin County in November 2013, as is a Freeholder election for a county charter in Jefferson County.
As of June 2013,
- The six home rule counties had collectively generated 117 attempted amendments that have been voted on by the county electorate. Of those 117 attempts, 79 amendments have been passed by the voters (an approval rate of 67.5%).
- Four of the county charters established a county executive/council form of governance (King, Whatcom, Snohomish, and Pierce).
- There have been ten initiatives passed in Washington home rule counties, 50% of which occurred in King County, although every home rule county (as of 2013) grants the powers of initiative and referendum to their voters.
- It is unknown at this writing the number of referendums, if any, which have been presented to voters in home rule counties.
Courtesy of “Neighborhood Associations Council of Clark County” Meeting Notes August 12, 2013; Kelly Sills – Clark County Economic Development Manager: Kelly.Sills@clark.wa.gov
http://www.clark.wa.gov/elections/index.html and
http://www.mrsc.org/subjects/governance/locgov12.aspx
Winde Bekins Chavez 
