This original guide was produced by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.
Community Bills of Rights (CBOR) come in a variety of forms, including municipal or county ordinances, home rule charters, charter amendments, state legislation, and state constitutional amendments. The community decides which form to use, depending largely upon the types of local government and the tools for exercising local government allowed by your state constitution. There’s no need to dwell on all these options just now. No matter what the form, there are important elements common to all of them.
A Community Bill of Rights takes nothing for granted except the supremacy of inalienable rights over other laws, and the necessity for challenging legal obstacles to the real-time enjoyment of those rights. Because there are well-established legal barriers to the exercise of the right to local self-government in defense of inalienable rights, each CBOR enacted addresses those obstacles specifically and challenges their legitimacy. MORE…