This image is from the CU-Boulder campus, but the Board of Regents oversee the entire CU system with its $6 billion budget.
The University of Colorado Board of Regents oversees the University of Colorado system, which includes the CU-Boulder campus, the CU-Denver campus, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The budget for the entire CU system in Fiscal Year 2024-25 is about $6.28 billion. There are nine Regents on the Board – one Regent representing each of Colorado’s eight Congressional districts, and one serving at-large (statewide). Regents serve six-year terms, and are limited to two terms in office.
I will only write about the statewide race this year, since there is no election for the Boulder-area congressional district Regent. Whoever wins this race will replace the current at-large Regent Lesley Smith from Boulder, who is not running for re-election and is instead running for the state House of Representatives in House District 49. This race will be decided by plurality vote, as the candidate with the most total votes will win no matter how many candidates are in the race.
Elliott Hood, Democratic
Elliott Hood
Elliott Hood, a Boulder education attorney, is making his first formal run for elected office by running for CU Regent At-Large in 2024. He became the Democratic nominee in the general election by defeating Charles Johnson in the June 2024 Democratic primary election.
Hood earned his bachelor’s degree from CU-Boulder, and his juris doctor degree from Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law. He is a member of the law firm Caplan and Earnest, and his practice is based in the firm’s Boulder office.
He is the Chair of the Boulder Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, the Vice Chair of the I Have A Dream Foundation of Boulder County, and sits on the Amicus Committee of the National School Boards Association. He has also been a member of the Colorado Disability Funding Committee, and a member of the governing board of the Colorado Bar Association – Continuing Legal Education (CBA-CLE), the nonprofit education arm of the Colorado Bar Association.
Some of Hood’s top platform priorities include:
- Greater affordability, including limiting tuition and fees, plus providing more affordable student housing.
- Increasing campus sustainability, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving water. His website does mention divesting from fossil fuel securities.
- Giving “teeth” to CU’s current diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, including improving retention rates for students and faculty of color.
- Protecting academic freedom, and Hood’s website calls out in particular that “conservative leaders are banning what can be taught and limiting faculty and student speech in pursuit of a partisan political agenda.”
Interested readers might wish to visit Hood’s Caplan and Earnest page to see a listing of legal cases he has worked on, and about 11 cases on this page pertained to education. This included cases involving public health orders, special education, Title IX, religious discrimination, and charter schools.
Campaign Website: https://www.hoodforcolorado.com/
Eric Rinard, Republican
Eric Rinard, an electrical engineer from Erie, is making his second run for the Regents in 2024, as he ran for the 8th Congressional District seat in 2022 but was narrowly defeated by Mark VanDriel in the Republican Party primary election. VanDriel went on to win the 2022 general election and now serves as the Regent for CD-8. In 2024, Rinard ran unopposed during the Republican primary election cycle.
Rinard earned his degree in electrical engineering from CU-Boulder, and is currently a senior engineer with KMLabs in Boulder. He has also served as a board member and board Vice President with Aspen Ridge Preparatory School, a PK-8 charter school located in Erie.
His campaign website was a little light on detailed policy proposals or objectives for the CU System as of late September 2024, but here are a few excerpts:
- Promote free speech – Oppose mandates and prohibitions
- Restore balance and diversity of opinion at CU
- I will seek to increase accessibility (to CU) and reduce cost even further.
- I will constantly support the growth and diversity of research initiatives on all campuses.
For two excerpts from his 2024 Ballotpedia questionnaire:
- I enjoy studying philosophy and political economics and steadfastly advocate for free market capitalism, republicanism and individual liberty – in short, ‘Americanism.’
- (Rinard supports) Promotion of minority rights while recognizing that the smallest minority is the individual. The United States Constitution was designed for this purpose, and all public policy must respect it.
Campaign Website:
https://www.rinardforregent.com/
T.J. Cole, Unity Party
Tijani J. Cole, Unity Party candidate for CU Regent at-large, has not held elected office but ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from Colorado in 2022, and for the Colorado State Senate as a Democrat in 2016 in Senate District 23. He currently lives in Broomfield, Colorado.
According to Ballotpedia, he is originally from Denver and earned a bachelor’s degree from Colorado College in 1987, a law degree from the University of Denver in 1990, a graduate degree from the University of Denver in 2001, and a Ph.D. from Colorado College in 2010. Cole’s professional experience includes serving as a professor, college president, high school principal, district court magistrate, municipal court judge, reserve police officer, and deputy state public defender. He is a member of the American Judges Association, the Boulder Bar Association, American Football Coaches Association, and he is a certified law enforcement officer.
As of early September 2023, Cole did not appear to have a campaign website for his Regent run, but did have a Facebook page. His website for his 2022 Senate run offered one brief statement on higher education: “Higher education must be affordable and available to all. An educated population enhances every aspect of American life. Education broadens the mind.” I will update this section if more information becomes available.
Readers might also be interested in this curious little post found on the Unity Party website in early September sort of about Cole and perhaps more about his degree of appreciation for Unity stalwart Bill Hammons:
The Honorable (former judge) and current Chairman of the Unity Party of Colorado Tijani “TJ” Cole has declared as a 2024 Unity Party of Colorado candidate for the University of Colorado Board of Regents Regent At-large position.
What Judge Cole hasn’t shouted from the rooftops is who put him in that state Unity Party of Colorado chair position. More details later, as more evidence is retrieved from the extensive records. Unlike as is the case with at least a few other “Uniters,” we’re not saying you shouldn’t vote for him. We’re just saying he needs to show a little gratitude, do his job better, and act a little more like a true Uniter.
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/tj.cole.14/
Thomas Reasoner, Approval Voting Party
As of late August 2024, it was not easily apparent that Reasoner had ever run for elected office before, or that he had a campaign website. I will update this section if I find new information.
Richard’s Take
Vote Hood. He is a deeply experienced education attorney running for a position in which the Regents will be called upon to consider higher education law and its relevant implications. Rinard has some direct education experience with the Aspen Ridge PK-8 charter school, but his life’s work has primarily been in engineering – though CU definitely has an important and successful engineering school. Still, to me Hood has a clear edge in relevant experience for this particular job.
Voters can obviously vote for the candidate of their choice, regardless of political party, but they might also wish to consider that partisan control of the Board of Regents can make a real difference in the board’s political direction. With only nine members, one seat can swing the balance, whether it’s this year or two/four years into the future – plus it’s important to remember that Regent terms are six years long.
It’s only been since 2020 that Democrats had a majority on this Board, and just a few years since former Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl was one of the at-large Regents. Ganahl used her position to foster right-wing ideology, including work to advocate and protect conservative speech on CU campuses. Regents vote to hire CU System Presidents, and Ganahl supported hiring the conservative Mark Kennedy as CU’s second-most-recent President. She also praised John Eastman, who was named as a CU Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for 2020-21, and was also an attorney deeply involved in former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
I do not wish to equate Rinard with Ganahl, but couldn’t help seeing a picture of Rinard and Ganahl together and a Ganahl endorsement on his website. However, the small amount of information I could find on his website and on Ballotpedia suggests voters would be getting a traditional Republican in Rinard, which typically means you’d get Republican values and conservative voting behavior. Consider these last two paragraphs my warning to Boulder voters, especially progressives/liberals/centrists, that they might regret another conservative takeover of the Board of Regents.
Statewide voters might not pay a great deal of attention to Regent races, but in 2024 the at-large race is actually the only statewide candidate race on the ballot so it’s received some publicity. Boulder voters in particular should not blow off Regent elections, if only because of the importance of CU to the local economy and local society. I don’t expect voters outside of Boulder to pay the same level of attention to this race, but they should. CU is an important state institution that provides many students with the tools and degrees they’ll need to succeed in life; brings research dollars and programs to the state; has a highly-regarded medical campus; and residents of college towns who aren’t students can enjoy the discourse, athletics, arts and music that come with a university environment.
