Legislative Action - League of Women Voters Larimer County

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Legislative Action

Legislative Action monitors current legislation and organizes LWVLC members to take action via letters, telephone calls, e-mails, and faxes to elected officials. Currently all LWVLC Teams take on the role of "Legislative Action", monitoring, studying, and becoming involved in issues at the local, state and national levels that are the focus of their teams.

Teams also may coordinate with each other with testimony on local, state, and national issues on which the League has stated positions. They communicate Action Alerts to League members via email and encourage their participation; encourage participation in the State League Legislative Day and visits to the state capitol, and organize a program where our League lobbyist gives a summation of League action and Legislative action after the State Legislature adjourns.

Legislative Updates

The Colorado Legislative Session begins in January. When there is information about the upcoming session, it will be posted.

In addition, agenda items of interest to the League and its members for local governments will be posted as they occur.

Research, Positions, and Advocacy

Over its nearly 100 year history, the national League of Women Voters has developed position statements on a wide array of political issues. These positions are the result of in-depth study and analysis by members and member consensus to adopt the position statements. The position statements listed below represent the outcomes of this process at a national, state, and local level.

LWVUS Positions

LWVCO Positions

The current Impact on Issues reflects the 2016-2018 program adopted by the 2016 convention of the LWVUS; the “positions in brief” listed there summarize the official statements of positions included in this guide. This document is updated following each biennial convention.

More Information on Current Issues and Advocacy

The program books available provide the official statements of position for each program area.
LWVCO Positions

Be in the Know: Subscribe to the Legislative Letter

Every two weeks during the session, the Legislative Letter is published and distributed to subscribers, legislators, the media, the Governor’s office, and local Leagues. You can read about each bill that is being followed by League, learn the provisions and the effects, and stay updated on their progress.
Colorado Legislative Letter

LWV Larimer County Positions

Local Planning

Support for maintaining and strengthening a sense of place and community identity in Larimer County communities by encouraging the use of downtown areas as the primary cultural and governmental centers and by using a variety of measures to insure the economic vitality of downtown areas. Encourage the inclusion of a mix of goods and services and of housing types to attract a diverse group of people, including families.

Support of adequate funding for comprehensive planning and its implementation, including periodic review and monitoring, by Larimer County and its cities and towns. This should include intergovernmental and regional planning.

Support for the principle that the costs of capital improvements resulting from growth should be borne by those who benefit from them but that special allowances should be made for affordable housing and for natural areas.

Continued support for acquisition of open space.

Number of Larimer County Commissioners

Supports increasing the number of Larimer County Commissioners from three to five and exclusively supports the following two election options for the ballot:

Five commissioners, each elected by voters in their representative districts.

Three commissioners elected by voters in their representative districts and two countywide commissioners elected at-large.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

The League of Women Voters of Larimer County supports an alternative to plurality voting that would accomplish the following objectives:

• Every person’s vote should count.

• A winner should have majority support.

Furthermore, we also support alternatives that can be expected to:

maximize voter participation; be open to a variety of candidates and ideas;

and encourage positive, issue-based campaigning.

We believe that in single-seat elections, IRV (Instant Runoff voting) has the best chance of meeting these objectives.

Library Funding

The LWV-LC supports funding of public libraries in Larimer County either through voter-approved property tax or a combination of dedicated property tax and public general fund revenue. Dedicated property tax provides a more stable and predictable source of funding for public libraries than one that depends solely on general fund revenues.