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Publication Date: November 25th, 2025
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Columbia County’s small towns have stood since the founding of the Republic, sent men to every war, resisted outside meddlers and taken pride in principled lives outside New York City. Like Montana’s somewhat fictionalized Yellowstone, Columbia County still wrangles with the legacy of land disputes, and competing cultures clash. Our county is more Yellowstone than House of Cards, not only in its rural setting but also in cultural aspirations. Many residents outside the left leaning City of Hudson and small enclaves see themselves closer to the honorable John Dutton (Kevin Costner) than to the scheming Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey). Dutton is not a career politician. He stands in the old Cincinnatus tradition, called to public duty from his land, serving in public life as briefly as possible so that he can return to his family and his land.
Dutton famously said:
"Learn to be meaner than evil and still love your family and enjoy a sunrise."
What would John Dutton do as leader of Columbia County? He would challenge his opponents in the open, stake his claim in public, and refuse to win through a backdoor prearranged political deal. He doesn’t have time for shenanigans, someone has to run the ranch. That is the opposite of the underhanded Underwood way. Frank Underwood won smaller elections earlier in his career, then once in power and in DC, schemed his way into the vice presidency and finally the Oval Office, all without ever winning an election from the larger polity he manoeuvred to control.
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See John Dutton’s winning speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUy8BwMHEs8&t=187s
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Hudson has just elected a mayor, Joe Ferris, and a Common Council president, Margaret Morris, in open contests [see our rundown of the election here]. Ditto town elections and their 18 town Supervisors. County leadership, who leads the Supervisors, is far less transparent. The Columbia County Board of Supervisors will soon choose its chair, the de facto executive of a two hundred million dollar government. The Board has twenty-three members (18 towns, and 5 wards in Hudson) with weighted votes. Any one of the 23 Supervisors could theoretically lead as Chair. Voters have no direct influence, and rely on our elected representatives.
Whichever party controls the largest bloc of weighted votes meets in private, usually long before the official vote, and selects a loyal candidate and presents that choice to the full Board. Minority members, independents, and many Hudson representatives watch from the sidelines. This process has kept Stockport (pop. ~2500) supervisor Matt Murrell in power for about a decade without a single countywide contest for the job he actually performs. He is elevated by a handful of colleagues from the most populous towns, not by the voters whose taxes and services he oversees.
This is not against the law. Columbia County is not a direct democracy. Nevertheless, a representative government still requires daylight. A chair seeking this authority should at the very least publish a resume, provide a written plan, and answer questions in a public forum with all Board of Supervisors present. Instead, Murrell works the phones with a few GOP supervisors from the more populous towns, locks up the weighted vote, and by the time anyone else looks up the chairmanship is a fait accom-phone.
Many long serving supervisors are competent and respected. These are good men and women who take time away from their families and jobs to serve a largely thankless public for almost no pay. Several Republicans won recent races, against well-funded Democrats, with broad cross-over support for being moderate, efficient, and focused on results. They also run farms, trades, and small firms while trying to govern their towns.
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Editors’ Aside: Despite our criticisms of The Chairman, which are fair and reasonable, The Chairman does deserve recognition for the time, dedication, and love he has poured into Columbia County. This is a man who goes to dozens of hours of meetings a week dealing with meandering issues and minutiae. Still, good stewardship would see him make way for the next generation and evolve with the times.
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Challenging a long standing chair carries risks. Failure can bring quiet retaliation in budgets and appointments. Success means inheriting an aging bureaucracy caught between loud activists in Hudson and entrenched rural interests. In that climate inertia feels safer than leadership. And this is how Murrell, who as far as we can tell mostly worked in County youth services, may have graduated from Syracuse half a century ago, continues to hold on. (Our editors have reached out to his office for a resume and a chair candidacy statement for the 2026-2027 term, and have offered to meet in person to shake his hand and learn of his plan. We have yet to receive an answer from his footwoman…)
Update as of 11/27: The Chairman has agreed to a meeting.
Republicans still dominate the towns, but migration from downstate and demographic churn around Hudson are shifting the political centre. A party that wins on competence cannot be seen protecting insiders. Opaque caucus deals invite rivals to caricature county government as an old boys’ club. That impression hardened after Murrell’s clumsy handling of a ballot initiative (that was funded by the Columbia County Democratic Committee) earlier this year, resolved not by argument but by procedural manoeuvre. The “good ole boy” label fits Matt Murrell, and perhaps former Hudson mayor and career politician Rick Scalera, but it is an albatross unfairly hung on most other GOP supervisors, who mostly put duty before politics.
Columbia County is older and less dense than the state as a whole. Its (unfunded) mandates remain heavy. A part-time Board and a part-time chair must manage aging infrastructure, rising housing costs and complex social services. Leaving executive authority to a closed caucus is untenable. Choosing a legislative leader in private is one thing. Choosing the effective executive is another.
Dutchess County has an elected executive with a public mandate. The Berkshires dismantled county government and shifted responsibilities to state and regional bodies. Columbia County occupies an uncomfortable middle ground, operating a nineteenth century structure under twenty-first-century strain.
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In contrast to Matt Murrell’s missing public resume and uncredited, out-of-date headshot, Dutchess County leader Sue Serino’s profile, contact details, public statement, and resume are available online, for all to see:
https://www.dutchessny.gov/Departments/County-Executive/Dutchess-County-Executive.htm
https://www.nysenate.gov/senators/susan-serino/about
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If Murrell prevails through a transparent process and presents a concrete plan, he earns legitimacy and strengthens the Board. If he tries, again, to prevent a merit-based contest, he proves his critics right. That would be a Biden-style refusal to face scrutiny, hoping no one notices that the **“Chair”, as he insists on being called, does not have new clothes, but no clothes at all.** Biden missed the moment and the Democratic Party paid the price. If Murrell is allowed to miss his moment the Columbia County GOP will ultimately pay the price in the next election.
Murrell and his “peers,” as he calls them, would do well to remember Dutton’s reflection:
"Lawyers are the swords of this century. Words are weapons now."
Murrell need not fear the bored, retired professional Democrat protesters from 7th Street Park, or the Title IX lawyers from New York City who now divide the County, cosplaying as party leaders because they never made the cut in the city or the capital. His real problem sits much closer to home. It is his neighbours, his friends, the Republicans who voted for him and will slowly see that, under his watch, they get less for their tax dollars, more nepotism and cronyism, and more noise from astroturf Democrats who will, if he keeps stumbling, take the county and import Washington politics and a New York City way of life. This is the valley that gave America Van Buren, Livingston, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Rockefeller, and Ethan Allen, leaders raised in the countryside, confident with words, markets and American liberties. If Murrell keeps treating his voters as a captive herd, one of them will stop voting quietly, step forward as a farmer or tradesman turned fighter, and lead the revolt against him.
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For Yellowstone Connoisseurs:
yes, we are aware that John Dutton is not perfect and that his TV show character does on occasion ride roughshod over the law, and occasionally places family - and most notably the The Ranch - above the national public good. Nevertheless, his character arc is honorable, and perhaps Columbia County residents yearn for someone who puts The County above all else, and especially themselves. Perhaps that is why Columbia County residents admire John Dutton more than Kevin Spacey’s scheming Frank Underwood.
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Last edited/updated:
November 29th, 2025
Correction: The County Budget for 2026 is less than 200m, likely in the range of ~$185m
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Agreement is welcome. Disagreement is vital. Nuance is rare and therefore prized. Common Sense exists to sharpen arguments, not settle them. Submit your Guest Op-Ed HERE.
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