Denver voters in May could be asked to approve measures that change the way at-large City Council members are elected and extend the term limit for the district attorney.
The City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on both issues.
Currently, anyone running for an at-large council seat runs in one large pool. The two candidates with the most votes win the seats.
The problem is that makes for a City Council member elected by a small number of people, said at-large Councilman Doug Linkhart, who is pushing for the change.
For instance, Linkhart and Carol Boigon – the other at-large council member – were elected by 17 percent of the vote and 22 percent of the vote, respectively.
“I had 25,000 votes,” Linkhart said. “Which in a city of 600,000 doesn’t seem like a huge mandate.”
Linkhart’s proposal would divide the races into separate campaigns and require that winning candidates be elected by a majority. If council and then voters approve the idea, it would not take effect until 2011.
In a committee meeting on the issue, Boigon said she supported the change.
Meanwhile, the council also is considering an issue to lengthen the term limits for the district attorney’s office. Currently, the city’s top prosecutor is the only city office limited to two terms – the others have three.
District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said legal questions that have since been resolved kept Denver from extending the third term to the office when the others were extended in 2001.
“Everybody elected in Denver, with the exception of the district attorney, currently serves three terms,” Morrissey said. “What this ballot initiative would do is amend that (2001) ordinance.”
Morrissey is in his first term.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
