Rockville Knows Best
(Screen clip from September 2026 Rockville City Council Meeting, with photoshopped artistic overlay for television)
If you want to draw your 16-year-old into an argument, ask their opinion, listen to them patiently, and tell them they don't get it and they are wrong. Then override their choice, say it's “because I know what's best for you,” and sigh gratuitously when the bedroom door slams shut.
That's not a fair or effective way to parent, and it's an equally poor way of governing. But that's pretty much what the City of Rockville is doing to its residents through a proposed charter amendment.
In November 2023, Rockville voters were asked in a nonbinding advisory referendum whether the municipal voting age should be lowered to 16. A hair under 70 percent of more than 12,500 voters opposed the proposal. There was no public confusion or ambiguity about the question. It was a decisive rejection.
Three years later, some Rockville leaders want to use the infuriating parental cop-out “because I said so” as justification to impose “I know what's best for you.” The city is again considering lowering the voting age to 16 for municipal elections, but this time it is part of a series of proposed changes to the City Charter and election laws to be voted on by the council. Residents don't get a vote, although there will likely be some door slamming when the Mayor and Council hold public hearings on the proposals on Nov. 2 and Nov. 9 at Rockville City Hall.
The proposal’s supporters cite research, recommendations from the Charter Review Commission, and other Maryland municipalities that have adopted similar rules to justify the change to 16. They already made those arguments and the people have spoken. Decisively, 7:3.
Parents sometimes have to make unpopular decisions for their children. Rockville voters aren't children (at least not yet), and the City Council aren't their parents. An electorate of intelligent, well-informed adults made a deliberate choice. It should be respected, not circumvented.
The irony is that Rockville officials advocating for the change say lowering the voting age to 16 will encourage civic participation, yet want to enact the change using tactics likely to stifle civic participation. What's the point of a referendum if the government is just going to do it anyway?
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The Mayor and Council of Rockville will conduct four public hearings on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026 and Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, at 7 p.m., or as soon thereafter as they may be heard. The hearings will be held in the Mayor and Council chambers, Rockville City Hall, 111 Maryland Ave., Rockville, MD 20850. For more information and to sign up to speak, visit https://www.rockvillemd.gov/news/2026/10/09/public-hearing-notice-proposed-changes-to-elections-code-voting-age-term-limits-minimum-age-to-serve/
