Champaign County Executive Darlene Kloeppel filed a lawsuit this past week in search of a judicial ruling that would expand her authority at the expense of the county board.

But Kloeppel’s move is nothing compared to two local Democrats’ goal of persuading voters to approve home-rule powers for Champaign County, a move that would vastly expand its taxing and regulating authority.

For now, Cook County is the only one of Illinois’ 102 counties to exercise vast home-rule powers. Municipalities with populations in excess of 25,000 — including Champaign and Urbana — also exercise home-rule authority.

It’s unclear whether the proponents of the plan want to put the measure to a vote in the November election.

County board member Stephanie Fortado said she’s just trying to “start a conversation” on the advantages of home rule for Champaign County.

“I don’t anticipate (a November vote) right now,” said Fortado, who represents District 8 in Champaign. She said she doesn’t “want to predict” when the measure might be put to a vote.

But her partner this effort, Emily Rodriguez, a Democrat running unopposed for the other seat in District 8, is much more aggressive.

She declined to answer questions, but recently posted the following message on Facebook: “Let’s get home rule on the ballot in November.”

What would home rule mean for county residents?

“It dramatically changes the whole logic of the relationship of the local unit of government to state government,” said Kent Redfield, a retired political-science professor at the University of Illinois-Springfield.

As a non-home-rule unit of government, the county’s functions are limited to what state law expressly permits. Most of that current authority involves law enforcement and judicial duties.

If Champaign County became a home-rule unit, it could do anything except that which state law expressly forbids. For example, state law sets the legal drinking age at 21 and forbids home-rule units of government from setting their own age limit.

The movement for home rule is a replay of Rodriguez’s successful campaign for her party’s nomination in the March primary against current county board Chairman Giraldo Rosales.

Noting that his opponent was calling for the county to take action for which it had no authority, Rosales said social-service programs are outside the jurisdiction of Champaign County government.

But Rodriguez, a University of Illinois doctoral candidate who said her goal is to eliminate poverty in Champaign County, urged a more aggressive approach and handily won the election.

She was one of four self-described progressives to oust more moderate Democratic incumbents, a result that leaves the county board under firm control of the wing of the local Democratic Party controlled by state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, and her husband, County Clerk Aaron Ammons.

Rodriguez describes herself as “broken record” on the home-rule issue.

In a recent online lecture, she and Fortado outlined what they described as four benefits of expanding the county’s authority via home rule.

If home rule is approved, they said the county board could “implement ideas” proposed by a county-appointed Racial Justice Task Force. One example they they cited is the possibility of an ordinance that would eliminate cash bail for those accused of crimes.

“We can do that on our own,” Rodriguez said.

They also cited the possibility of passing environmental regulations that promote a “sustainable environment” and restrict “corporate businesses that are looting our area.”

In addition, they want to implement new mental- and public-health programs and expand the economy “so it works for everyone.”

Their ambitious social-service agenda would be funded, they said, by unidentified “revenue streams.”

Redfield said the proposal embraces the usual political fault lines. Home-rule backers promote more powerful, more ambitious and larger units of government that levy higher taxes. Opponents generally fall in the category of those skeptical of government’s power and competence and, as a consequence, want to limit its authority, particularly as it relates to new taxes.

That latter approach is an anathema to Rodriguez and Fortado.

Fortado said expanding governmental power is the best means of using local government to address local issues.

Rodriguez put it in a different way.

“It is not the job of a local official to say, ‘We can’t do anything about that.’ We have to help out,” she said.

Citing county government’s chief problem — “We have no money” — she said home rule provides “an obvious way” to fund programs that meet people’s needs.

Of course, Champaign County already has governmental entities that do some of what Fortado and Rodriguez propose. In the primary, Rosales noted that units like the Champaign County Mental Health Board, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District and the Housing Authority of Champaign County address the issues the home-rule backers say they want to address.

But Rodriguez’s primary victory showed there’s an audience for her approach, and the new-found power of political progressives in Champaign County demonstrates that opponents of home rule ignore this movement at their peril.