It has long been evident that the University of Colorado Board of Regents is in need of reform, and the board’s recent mishandling of the process to hire a university system president only affirmed that legislators should consider changing the method by which regents are chosen.

The Daily Camera Editorial Board first called for reform in May, after regents announced Mark Kennedy as the sole finalist for CU president. Kennedy, a former Republican congressman who came with objectionable ideological tendencies and an uninspiring record of managerial experience, appeared to have been elevated by the Republican-majority regents due to his partisan credentials rather than professional qualifications — a characterization that was corroborated by recent revelations about the president selection process.

Lawmakers now are expected to propose reform of the regents board during the current legislative session. What might reform look like?

The Board of Regents is established by the Colorado Constitution in a brief passage that calls for a nine-seat body of members who are elected to six-year terms. The Constitution specifies that the regents are to be elected to their positions — not how they’re elected. Election details are found in the statutes, which call for regents to run for office in general elections. The statutes also apportion two regent seats to at-large races and the other seven to races in the state’s seven congressional districts.

This set of provisions makes CU unusual. The members of most governing boards at university systems comparable to CU, such as the University of California and the University of Illinois, are appointed by the governor and are better insulated from shifting political winds. CU is said to be the only university system in the country with a governing body whose members are selected by the state’s voters in a partisan general election. Unrestrained partisanship on the board breeds dysfunction, as political and constituency interests too often take precedence over sound stewardship of a vital public institution.

A Constitutional amendment would be hard to achieve, but statutory reform might offer an effective solution, and Minnesota offers a model that contains elements Colorado might emulate. A Regent Candidate Advisory Council recruits and vets candidates for the University of Minnesota Board of Regents according to relevant experience and established criteria that ensures regents represent diversity in geography, gender, race, occupation and experience. The RCAC forwards a recommended slate of candidates to a legislative committee, which in turn submits a list of candidates to the Legislature. A joint session of the Legislature elects the regents.

The Minnesota model is hardly immune to partisanship, and it can be susceptible to political distortions — for example, while the RCAC advances a list of vetted candidates, the Legislature is not required to elect regents from the list, and candidates can skirt the vetting process and be nominated during a joint session itself. Even with RCAC-approved candidates, the legislative election can be intensely partisan.

However, legislative activity is by definition political, and partisanship in the selection of regents is different than partisanship among seated regents. On balance, the RCAC system appears to have served its purpose. Last year a group of former University of Minnesota vice presidents and other officials wrote in the Star Tribune that “the RCAC is an essential step in ensuring that we have great candidates” for the regents board. “There have been efforts to eliminate the RCAC and make regent selection wholly political. We think this is a bad idea and should be resisted. … The duty of each regent is to the university, not a political party or special interest. The goal should not be to pick partisans, but to choose individuals who have shown substantial accomplishment and good judgment in their lives, and who have demonstrated the ability to respect the views and opinions of others.”

An appointed council that vets and advances regent candidates could be a suitable improvement for CU, especially if vetted candidates could not be supplanted by others who avoided council scrutiny. Reform of Colorado statutes to define regent elections as a legislative activity, however, might invite a legal challenge, since the Board of Regents occupies a privileged place in the Constitution. Its stature is attested to in case law, notably the Colorado Supreme Court’s 2012 Churchill v. University of Colorado at Boulder decision, which described the regents board as “unique in our constitutional structure in that it exists independently of both the legislative and executive branches.”

If lawmakers decide that election of regents by the Legislature is legally untenable under the current constitutional framework, they could yet design a system whereby a slate of competent, vetted candidates — rather than partisan candidates who come up through party machinery — could be submitted to the state’s voters.

Noxious partisanship on the Board of Regents was on display during the Kennedy selection. But it shows up elsewhere. A 2018 report on the CU system said the regents struggle to implement strategic plans, and then-regent Steve Ludwig, referring to the regents’ political divisions, said during their annual retreat that year, “What’s the cost of this dysfunction? How many students are we not serving because the board can’t get along better?” The annual retreat earlier this month kicked off with a discussion about how the regents might better work with each other, and Camera reporter Katie Langford noted that “for years, regents have hired consultants and done studies to look at why and how partisan and personal agendas interfere with governing the four-campus system.” During the Kennedy selection, Regent Chance Hill on Facebook attacked Democratic colleagues and “radical Leftists,” and he described CU campuses, which he is supposed to lead, as “liberal college fiefdoms where people suffer real negative consequences if they dare challenge the Leftist orthodoxy.”

Colorado deserves better. No method of choosing regents can be partisanship-free, but lawmakers can enact reforms that constrain politics in favor of competence, experience and passion for one of the state’s crucial economic and cultural resources.

Quentin Young, for the editorial board, quentin@dailycamera.com, @qpyoungnews.