Ann Arbor’s conservatives held a majority on City Council from 2018 until the November 2020 election. Their governance style and core policy positions (stymieing new housing, subsidizing high water users, preventing road safety improvements) were ultimately unpopular with the electorate, who handed this faction resounding defeats in the 2020 and 2022 elections. Instead of trying to broaden their appeal and contest seats in the 2024 council elections, the conservative faction is putting their effort behind these two ballot initiatives to shake up the election process in the hopes that it will make it easier for them to get elected. It is wild to me that they are trying to change the rules of the game, instead of reflecting on why they are so profoundly unpopular with voters.
Nonpartisan elections
The nonpartisan election petition would prohibit partisan labels on Mayoral and Council elections, and it would eliminate the August Primary for these positions. This is profoundly risky. While it might increase the chances that the conservative faction has more electoral success, it also increases the chances that a Republican makes their way onto Council. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where 3 Democrats and 1 Republican run for a council seat and the Republican squeaks by with a narrow victory. We can use the 2020 Presidential Election as a proxy for the proportion of Democrats and Republicans in Ann Arbor. In that election 72% of the votes went to Biden, and 25% went to Trump. In our scenario, our 3 Democratic candidates could end up splitting the 72% and losing to the Republican candidate. The system proposed by the ballot initiative would make it possible for Republicans to gain a foothold on council.
The proponents of nonpartisan elections argue that the vast majority of cities in Michigan have nonpartisan municipal elections. While it’s true that Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are the only cities that have partisan municipal elections, the vast majority of Michigan’s municipalities are townships, all of which have partisan elections. The proponents also make no argument that governance will actually be better with nonpartisan elections. If their argument is that Ann Arbor should do what most municipalities do, well, Ann Arbor is already doing that. Furthermore, partisan elections and partisan labels are good. It’s an important filter for voters. Ann Arbor should not make it easier for conservatives to hide who they are from voters. If “local issues are nonpartisan issues” as the proponents of nonpartisan elections argue, should we also have nonpartisan county elections? The idea that local issues somehow bypass the major cultural divide between progressives and conservatives is farcical.
Nonpartisan elections would ensure that the November election is the only election for Ann Arbor’s Mayor and Council. This is a laudable goal, but this ballot initiative does so by eliminating primaries altogether. As stated above, removing primaries is very risky. In addition to increasing the risk of electing unpopular candidates. Only Democrats have run in the two most recent council elections, but Ann Arbor being a single party town is a recent phenomenon. Ex-Republican, CM Lumm held her ward 2 seat as an independent just 4 years ago. Throwing out the current electoral system so quickly seems pretty hasty. If Ann Arbor wants to ensure the November Election is the most important one there are safer ways to do so. Either through ranked choice voting, or through an at large/jungle primary. This is what California does for some state offices. In a jungle primary, all candidates compete against each other, regardless of party affiliation and the two with the highest vote totals go to the general election. Both of these election changes would require changes to state law, but would also ensure that the winning candidate actually got a majority of the votes.
Other assorted thoughts about why nonpartisan elections are bad:
If someone speaks regularly at council arguing against housing, you can bet they are one of the petition circulators.
Lots of people skip the nonpartisan portion of the election in November.
Ex-Ward 4 Councilmember, Elizabeth Nelson is one of the driving forces behind these petitions. When the Ann Arbor Observer pointed this out in their article, she accused the Observer and the Mayor of “doxxing” her in this TikTok. Read the article, then watch the video, it’s just weird. Here’s what the Observer said: “Nelson didn’t respond to emailed questions. However, in May, an amended filing by the ballot committee “Voters Not Money” listed its physical address as 1319 Ardmoor—which the city assessor’s website identifies as Nelson’s home.” This is not doxxing. The public has a right to know who is behind ballot initiatives. The Observer identifying how they deduced Nelson was affiliated with the campaigns was germain to their reporting.
Campaign finance documents just dropped. A full 30% of the money behind these petition drives came from out of town landlords. This is a good enough reason not to support these petitions.
Switching to nonpartisan elections would be a mistake for Ann Arbor. It would dramatically increase the chance of electing a candidate representing only a minority of voters to council, even if most voters agree that candidate is not who they want representing them. If the conservative faction would like to hold seats on Council again, they should focus on appealing to voters, instead of throwing the electoral system into chaos in the vain hope that this gets them elected. I encourage you to not sign these petitions, and if they end up on the ballot, please do not vote for them.
Publicly funded election
At first the idea of publicly funded elections seems like a good way to even the playing field. Why not take money out of the equation when running for office? Here’s the thing, this would likely put more money into local elections, not take it out.? This proposal would give Council Candidates a 9:1 donation match at a huge cost to the general fund. It would be expensive, open the door to tremendous risk of grift, and would ensure a field full of unserious candidates. If you can get 100 signatures on a nominating petition, you could get your friends to each donate $50 to you. Then the city would “match” that with $450 per 50$ donation. Then you can pay your friends back as “campaign consultants.”
Denver has a similar program. In their 2023 mayoral election, the city wasted $1.7 million on candidates who earned less than 5% of the total vote. Beyond the direct cost of giving money to candidates, the city would incur additional costs from having to administer this new program.
This issue has been a bugbear of ex-councilmember Nelson, who blamed her loss to CM Akmon on being out fundraised in the Aug 2022 election. Indeed Nelson only raised $21k to Akmon’s $42k. However Akmon’s money came from 247 total donations, while Nelson only had 142 donations. Money correlates with successful candidates, but I think that it is because the total amount of money donated is highly correlated with the total number of donors.
The combined effect of the ballot initiatives
When combined, these proposals will ensure that mayoral and council elections will happen in a field of unserious and difficult to parse candidates, their campaigns funded by the public. This down ballot race will ask the electorate to choose between several candidates, and prove difficult for the good candidates to stand out from the bad. These elections and funding mechanisms will also likely cost the city enormous amounts of taxpayer money to manage. This will dramatically increase the chance that the winning candidate does not have the support of the majority of voters. What does this do to improve governance in Ann Arbor? I encourage you not to sign these, and if they end up on the ballot, I encourage you to vote against them.
Also, make sure you check out Scott Trudeau’s article on this topic.
Update, 2024-10-01:
There are now web pages against Prop C and against Prop D.
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