Pierce County Charter Amendments going to the Ballot in November 2026

(27th District support or opposition only where noted.)

Going to the Ballot

• C1 - To make the Sheriff an appointed position and to end the current Sheriff's term January 2027 (The 27th Republicans strongly oppose this proposal)

• C13 - Reduce the number of County Council meetings to 48 and allow for zoom access for the public.

• C18 - Establishes an office for oversite on the Juvenile Justice system which is currently being run by the Pierce County Superior courts. It forces the Juvenile Justice system to make public an annual report that give a lot of detail about daily activity inside the facility and outcomes of past inmates. it also requires regular audits and accreditation from an outside group and those audits to be given to the council and executive and be made public.

• C25 - Creates a requirement for a 4-year budget outlook.

• C36 - Adds a myriad of new terms to the anti-discrimination section of the charter to include terms like national origin, gender expression, and lactation.

• C30 - Creates but doesn't fund a new office of the Sheriff's Ombuds. This office will investigate and publicly report on the office of the Sheriff. It will have no authority over the Sheriff in any capacity. (The 27th Republicans strongly oppose this proposal)

• C32 - Lengthens the signature gathering phase of initiatives from 120 to 180 days.

Effectively dead

• C2 - Officially restricting the county from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.

• C6 - Adds the term resident to the preamble

• C7R - Adds the requirement of 3 years of residency to the requirements for running for county office.

• C8R - Explains that the hiring process for county employees and changes some wording on who is covered.

• C11 - Would make all elected offices limited to 3 terms as opposed to some at 2 terms and some at 3 terms.

• C20 - Allows members of the Charter Review Commission to be otherwise employed by the county.

• C23 - Changes the threshold for initiative signature gathering from 10% of the total votes in the most recent Executive race to 10% of the average of the last 4 general elections.

• C31 - Requires the council to designate an Executive Pro Tempore. the current wording merely allows the council to do so.

• O1 - Proposed by the executive and picked up by the Commission, this makes technical changes to the budget process. It is incredibly long and technical and would require reading the full proposal to understand without writing a thousand words here.

• O2 - Proposed by the Executive and picked up by the Commission, this would require all amendments proposed by council members be submitted in writing 4 hours prior to the council meeting.

Recommended to the County Council

• C28 - changes the current charter wording from a coroner system to a medical examiner system. currently the county operates under a medical examiner system in violation of the charter.

• C29 - Creates but doesn't fund a young persons' commission for people 14-25 inside the executive branch.

• C40 - Eliminates Executive Pro Tempore all together and creates a list of what qualifies an office as being vacated. It then creates a scheme for hiring a temporary appointee to the office until the next general election. It also requires office holders to designate a person within their office to fill their role in temporary absences.