One Board, One Council, One Legislator at a Time

By Michael J Badagliacco, “MJB” | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

While attending the Colorado Republican Assembly in April 2026, I reflected on how Colorado fell to the radical far left. A conversation with a friend came to mind. It described the precise mechanism the left uses to convert our Constitutional Republic into a social democracy, contrary to the vision of the founders.

The U.S. was founded as a Constitutional Republic with power rooted in local government, built from the bottom up rather than imposed from the top down. Although we look to the president for national leadership, the true foundation lies in town councils, school boards, and state legislatures. 

Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution guarantees to every state in the Union a Republican Form of Government. The 10th Amendment reinforces this by reserving powers to the states or the people. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison explained the genius of this structure. He warned that a “democracy becomes a spectacle of turbulence and contention, incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” A republic, by contrast, uses representation to control factions and protect liberty. The founders designed our system to prevent the hidden influence and incremental erosion we witness today.

The Progressive Era Shift to Nonpartisan Elections

During the late 1890s through the 1920s, city elections began shifting to “nonpartisan.” Groups such as the National Municipal League, founded in 1894, promoted model charters that removed party labels from ballots. The stated goal was to combat big-city machines, corruption, and boss control.

On the surface the idea sounded reasonable. Remove politics from local government. Make it businesslike and efficient. In practice the change proved far more dangerous. It stripped away labels and concealed true intentions. Voters could no longer see at a glance whether a candidate aligned with one party or another. The public lost the ability to understand the agenda fully.

How and When the Change Spread

The shift occurred gradually, city by city and state by state.

Early experiments began around 1909 to 1912. By 1929 a majority of U.S. cities with populations over 30,000 used nonpartisan elections. By the 1950s more than 60 percent of municipalities nationwide had adopted the system. Today over 75 percent of U.S. municipalities hold nonpartisan elections for city and town councils.

School boards and many special-district boards followed the same pattern. Nonpartisan elections became the norm, now exceeding 90 percent, during the same drive to keep education and local services out of politics.

Colorado-Specific Context

In Colorado, city and town council elections and most local boards have operated under nonpartisan rules for decades.

Denver adopted nonpartisan elections in its 1913 city charter as a Progressive reform against machine politics. Longmont’s charter made elections nonpartisan in 1961. State law has required school board elections to be nonpartisan since 1973. Even without party labels on the ballot, candidates often maintain party affiliations.

The One-Sided Nature of Nonpartisanship

What makes this pattern troubling is its one-sided effect. Today it is primarily the left that hides its affiliations behind the label of nonpartisanship. Conservatives remain happy and proud to display their partisan identity. They run openly as Republicans supporting limited government, individual liberty, and the rule of law.

The radical left, by contrast, recognizes that its full agenda of higher taxes, expansive regulations, ideological indoctrination in schools, and the replacement of republican principles with pure majoritarian rule would face rejection if voters saw it clearly. So candidates run without labels. They advance under the radar. They win one board, one council, one school district at a time. Then they use those positions to advance the very changes the founders warned against.

Is This Nefarious or Much Ado About Nothing?

Once in office, these officials employ incrementalism to undermine the fabric of our Republic. They replace the word “Republic” with “democracy” in everyday speech. The shift appears benign. It is not. Madison and the founders held strong views on this exact issue, expressed throughout the Federalist Papers and embedded in the Constitution. Democracy invites faction and tyranny of the majority. Our Republic was built to guard against it.

Stripping away labels hides true intentions. The practice is not accidental. It is strategic. The result is a slow, quiet erosion of the Constitutional Republic the founders envisioned. Local government was always meant to be the most transparent and accountable layer of our system. Nonpartisan elections have made it the opposite.

Restoring the Republic: One Board at a Time

We must reverse this trend. Not through a grand federal decree or top-down mandates, but one board, one council, one legislator at a time. We must demand transparency in every local race. We must remind voters that the guarantee of a Republican Form of Government in Article IV, Section 4 is not a suggestion. It forms the foundation of our liberty. The 10th Amendment reserves real power to the people and their local representatives for a reason.

The Progressive Era reformers may have believed they were cleaning up government. In practice they opened the door to undetected infiltration. The left has exploited that opening for decades. The time has come to close it. Let every candidate declare their principles. Let every voter see the labels clearly. Let us restore the bottom-up Constitutional Republic our founders gave us.

One board. One council. One legislator at a time. This is how we reclaim our country.

Michael J. Badagliacco, MJB

Michael is a father of five, grandfather of three, and recently elected to the Montrose Colorado City Council. He is also the editor in chief of USALibertyReport.com and remains enamored by the genius of the Constitution.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.