This column argues for a nonpartisan process for electing councilmembers and the mayor of Ann Arbor – in part because it reduces the potential for lame ducks. It might also encourage more competition and participation.

For a detailed history of Ann Arbor’s partisan system of elections, see Laidlaw’s previous column: “Ann Arbor – A One-Party Town.”

In 1908, the Michigan legislature gave cities the right to conduct non-partisan elections. Since then all but three Michigan cities have chosen to elect their local officials in a non-partisan way. The three holdouts for a partisan process are Ionia, Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.

Here in Ann Arbor, we currently hold partisan primaries in August to determine which candidates for city council and mayor appear on the November ballot – with a party label printed next to their names. Nowadays that’s typically a D or an R, more often a D.

It’s time to ask Ann Arbor voters to decide if they’d like to continue to elect local officials using this partisan primary system. It’s even possible to eliminate local primaries altogether. The city council has the power to place a ballot question before voters this November – a question asking voters if they would like to amend the city charter to convert city elections to a non-partisan process. The council should exercise that power.

What would the advantage be of a non-partisan system?

Background: April Elections, Competition

After the city of Ann Arbor switched the timing of city elections from April to November, the impact of the partisan local election system has been particularly negative. That switch was made in 1992 – by asking voters to amend the city charter, which they agreed to do. Until then, from the time of Ann Arbor’s incorporation in 1851, city elections were held in April, after primaries that were held in February. Those early-year elections were confined to city issues and the elections of city officials like councilmembers and the mayor. For 130 years, there was healthy competition for elected offices in all the city wards.

In the years leading up to the 1992 charter amendment, it was standard for the April city election to include contested races for the council seat in each ward. In 1987, a Republican and a Democrat appeared on the April ballot in each of five wards, for a total of 10 candidates. In 1989, a total of 11 candidates contested the April election – because Ward 3 and Ward 4 ballots included a Republican, a Democrat and a Libertarian. That year, the only ward without a contested election was Ward 1. And some Ward 1 voters wrote in names like Donald Duck and Ann E. Arbor, likely to express their dissatisfaction with that uncontested state of affairs.

Voter turnout for the April city elections was comparatively healthy by today’s standards. Of the roughly 85,000 registered voters in 1989, 19% turned up at the April polls to vote in city council races. In 1987, turnout was about 22%.

The 1992 charter amendment effectively ended that healthy competition and participation.

The 1992 charter amendment moved the city elections to coincide with the dates of the elections for state office – with a primary in August, and a general election in November. Proponents of the change asserted that it would mean the outcome of the elections would be decided by a larger number of the registered voters.

After April Became November

But the result has been the opposite. For example, in November 2007 none of the five city council races offered voters a ballot choice of names, or of parties – because they were all Democrats. Except in Ward 2, citywide turnout that year ranged between 2-4% of registered voters. The Ward 2 race was made interesting because of a spirited write-in campaign, which elevated participation to a “whopping” 9.5%.

Participation in the August 2007 Democratic primary was also low. The three-way race in the Ward 1 Democratic primary led only about 5% of voters to the polls. The other two wards with contested Democratic primaries that year had 6-8% voter turnout. The remaining two wards didn’t have a primary. So candidates in those wards were unchallenged, either inside or outside their own party.

That scenario has become the norm. More often than not, there is no competition for city council seats. When more than one person vies for a council seat, the election deciding that contest is usually the August Democratic primary, when a turnout of 10% of the registered voters in any ward would be considered typical.

Mixing the city elections with the partisan state and federal elections eventually resulted in one-party rule by Democrats. No one has been elected to an Ann Arbor city office as a Republican since 2003. And in 2005, one of those Republicans, elected in 2003, switched party labels to become a Democrat. She likely knew she stood a better chance of being elected as a Democrat.

Arguments for Non-Partisan Elections

Based on presidential elections, though, Ann Arbor seems to be a clearly Democratic town – so what’s wrong with one-party Democratic rule? Doesn’t that simply reflect the prevailing politics of our town? It might. But I think even Democrats would agree that it’s better to have a greater number of Democrats deciding our local elections, in November, rather than the paltry number who typically show up to participate in August Democratic primaries. A three-way race in a highly controversial 2009 Ward 3 contest drew only 12% of registered voters.

In that 2009 Ward 3 Democratic primary, the winner received just 511 votes – only 6 more than the second place candidate, who was actually the incumbent. Having lost the primary, that meant the incumbent had to serve as a lame duck councilmember for three months. If there were no primary election, any sitting councilmember who lost an election would sit as a lame duck on the council for just a single council meeting. Such a primary-free process would be possible if local elections were non-partisan. Ann Arbor doesn’t appear to need primaries to “narrow down” the field, which is supposed to be their function.

The other way councilmembers can be lame ducks is to choose not to seek re-election. Even if they don’t announce it, that intention becomes evident if incumbents do not meet the deadline for filing petitions. It’s a mid-May deadline for the August primary. With the current partisan primary system, councilmembers not seeking re-election become lame ducks about half a year before their terms end. This year, two councilmembers are voluntarily lame ducks until November. If Ann Arbor eliminated its primary system, then the filing deadlines would mean that councilmembers would serve only about three and a half months as voluntary lame ducks.

An Argument for Choice

I have advised the current Ann Arbor mayor and city councilmembers of the simple changes that would be required to amend the city charter so that Ann Arbor would conduct elections like most of the rest of Michigan cities.

It could be done in two ways. The party language could be deleted from the primary election clause so that a primary would be held only if more than two people filed for an office. That is the way the Lansing charter reads. Perhaps a better way would be to eliminate the primary election clause and just determine the winner by who gets the most votes in November. That is the route that Traverse City follows.

It is understandable that councilmembers would not jump at the chance to eliminate the election system by which they were put in office. But they should give the voters a choice to do that. That would be a choice to adopt a new, non-partisan system, or to reaffirm the choice voters last made over a half-century ago, in 1956 when the city charter was first ratified.

By adopting a simple resolution at the council table, the city council has the power to put a charter amendment on November’s ballot, and to give voters that choice. The alternative to council action would be for citizens to embark on the laborious process of getting the signatures of 5% of Ann Arbor’s registered voters on a petition – over 4,000. That should not be necessary, when the city council itself could put the question on the ballot with a simple vote at the council table.

It is time for the Ann Arbor city council to give voters a chance to make a change that could put some life back in city elections.

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Image links to the Google digital scan of the 1,204-page volume "Acts of the Legislature of the State of Michigan Passed at the Regular Session of 1859." The act in this screenshot amended the act that incorporated the city of Ann Arbor.

As this year’s May 15 filing deadline nears for Ann Arbor’s Aug. 7 partisan primaries, Laidlaw reflects on how it came to be that Ann Arbor’s local elections involve political parties at all. 

Ann Arbor was incorporated as a city 161 years ago, by a special act of the Michigan legislature in 1851.

At that time, special acts were required to incorporate cities and business corporations. So Act 101 of 1851, which incorporated Ann Arbor, was the original city charter. Subsequent Ann Arbor city charter amendments were also made by special acts of the Michigan legislature – in 1859, 1861, 1867 and 1889. Ann Arbor was governed under the 1889 special act charter until 1956.

The original Act 101 charter established the offices of a mayor, recorder, marshal, street commissioner, assessor, treasurer, three constables, four aldermen, two school inspectors, two directors of the poor, and four justices of the peace.

Demise of Special Act Cities

The 1908 Michigan Constitution moved control of the organization of cities to the local communities. It virtually outlawed the creation of special act cities. However, existing special act cities, like Ann Arbor, were allowed to continue in that form. The Home Rule Act adopted by the legislature in 1909 provided a procedure for existing or future cities to frame their own charters. But it would be a long struggle before Ann Arbor would adopt its own charter.

Home Rule Ann Arbor charters were proposed and voted down in 1913, 1921, and 1939. A big issue was the “radical” idea of replacing the complex governing system with a city manager. The 1889 Ann Arbor charter spread the administration of local government over a mayor, a common council president, 14 aldermen, a three-person board of public works, a three-person board of fire commissioners, a three-person board of public health, and a three-person board of building inspectors.

The idea of replacing citizen control through the various boards was not popular. Also, the Board of Realtors opposed the 1939 revision because of a fear of high taxes. Nonetheless, the cumbersome system of governance persuaded the electorate to approve the establishment of a charter commission in 1953. The commission’s task was to draft a charter according to the Home Rule Act, that could be put before voters.

The charter commissioners struggled with the concept of a city manager. They announced that they did not want a manager position that had full hiring/firing authority or the usual manager’s budget authority. On the other hand, they said they did not want a mere “errand boy.”

Out of this struggle they came up with the concept of a city administrator. The hiring and firing by the city administrator would have to be approved by the city council. The administrator would not even manage all the departments. The assessor and treasurer would report to the mayor. The planning department would report to the planning commission. (A subsequent amendment made the assessor and treasurer report to the city administrator rather than the mayor.)

Partisan Elections for Home Rule Ann Arbor?

Besides organizational governance, the other key issue for the 1953 Ann Arbor charter commission was partisan elections.

The original Act 101 charter addressed a variety of election issues that were not related to partisanship. For example, the original charter authorized the city to provide part of its financing through a poll tax. Section 31 stated:

The common council is authorized to assess and collect from every white male inhabitant of said city, over the age of twenty-one years, (except paupers, idiots and lunatics,) an annual capitation or poll tax not exceeding seventy-five cents; and they may provide by their by-laws for the collection of the same; Provided, That any person assessed for a poll tax may pay the same by one day’s labor upon the streets, under the direction of the street commissioner, who shall give to each person so assessed, notice of the time and place when and where such labor will be required; and the money raised by such poll tax, or the labor in lieu thereof, shall be expended or performed in the respective wards where the person so taxed shall reside.

The 1851 charter made no mention of political parties. But partisan state, national and local elections were provided by state election laws.

Under the 1889 special act charter and state election laws, nominations for the elected offices had been by a partisan primary election. But the Home Rule Act authorized local elections on either a partisan or non-partisan basis. That was a choice the 1953 Ann Arbor charter commission faced. From persons addressing the 1953 Ann Arbor charter commission, there was little support for non-partisan elections. George Wahr Sallade, who was common council president at the time, submitted a statement saying:

I feel very strongly that partisan elections are an indispensable part of the American democratic process. I have no sympathy with the often repeated argument that there is no Republican or Democratic way of collecting the garbage. After all, that could be pursued further with the statement that there is no Republican or Democratic way to build state highways or direct the state police and therefore the state legislature and the office of governor ought to be filled at a non-partisan election.

[Interestingly, Sallade was elected council president and later a state representative as a Republican. But he later ran for state office as a Democrat.]

Attorney John Dobson told the charter commissioners:

… I urge the retention of the present partisan election system for our local office holders. In Ann Arbor, at least, it seem[s] clear that the citizens have a much greater interest in partisan elections than they do in those which are non-partisan. The records of the persons voting in city government elections as compared with those voting in the city school elections makes this clear. Further, I strongly believe in party responsibility for candidates. By this, I mean that the party offering a candidate for office must assume responsibility for that candidate’s conduct in office. Thus the parties maintains [sic] or should maintain a continuing interest in their candidates performance. They can influence the candidate toward a better performance, and, if this influence is unsuccessful, can eliminate him. I feel that both parties in this community have, generally speaking, met this obligation.

However, a letter from the Ypsilanti manager to the charter commission stated:

I believe whole-heartedly in non-partisan City elections despite the strong argument that partisan politics create interest. I do not believe that a City government’s purpose is to promote interest in politics and parties, as such. I would prefer that government concentrate on service, efficiency and effectiveness and rely on the quality of these to generate and promote interest in local government.

The arguments in favor of partisan elections prevailed. In the report to citizens before the election to approve the charter, the charter commission stated:

The nomination and election of Mayor and Councilmen will continue to be on a partisan basis.

Multi-Party Ann Arbor

Elsie Deeren, who analyzed the 1953 charter commission’s work, offered this explanation for the commission’s recommendation to retain partisan elections:

The support of both political parties had many implications in a town that is predominately Republican, because support by one party only might have made the issue a partisan one rather than a common non-partisan aim for “good government.” Here too it might be said that abandonment of the aim for non-partisan elections was probably very helpful in gaining the support of the Republican party, since, as the controlling party, it would naturally look at any change with a view to the political dominance in town, and non-partisanship would perhaps be regarded as a Democratic device to get more members in office.

To say in 1955 that Ann Arbor was “predominately Republican” was a bit of an understatement. That dominance began with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In Ann Arbor, Dwight D. Eisenhower beat Adlai Stevenson by more than two to one. John F. Kennedy did barely better against Richard Nixon. Along the way, several Democrats were elected as mayors. And in 1913 a member of the Progressive Party was elected as an alderman. But Republicans remained firmly in control of the city council until 1969.

Buoyed by a drive to register students, in 1969 law professor Robert Harris was elected mayor along with a Democratic slate of councilmembers. The Democrats gained an eight-to-three majority on the council. Registering students was not an easy task because of a state law that created a presumption that a student’s home town was the place of residency for voting purposes. Students wishing to register in Ann Arbor had to answer questions that would determine whether they still had ties to their home towns. But that changed in 1972 when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the law that created the home town presumption was unconstitutional.

In 1971, the 26th amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted. It guarantees the right to vote for citizens over 18 years of age. It overrode the 21 year minimum voting age in the Michigan Constitution and made thousands of additional students eligible to vote in Ann Arbor. Given the propensity of the students to vote Democratic, it looked like the Democrats had a lock on control of the city council. But student activism had moved to the left of the Democratic party.

In 1972, the Human Rights Party (HRP) elected two members to city council seats and pushed a radical agenda. Ann Arbor became a three-party town. In 1973, the HRP nominated a candidate for mayor. That resulted in a split of the progressive vote between the HRP and the Democrats; so Republican James Stephenson won the mayor’s seat, despite getting just 47% of the vote.

To avoid that situation in future elections, the HRP succeeded in pushing a charter amendment for preferential voting – a variant of instant-runoff voting (IRV). Under that system, voters could designate first and second choices on the ballot. If a voter’s first choice did not win, the second choice would be counted to reach the total. In 1975, James Stephenson got the most first place votes, but when the second choices were added, Democrat Albert Wheeler was declared the winner. The election was challenged in court, but the Home Rule Act specifically authorizes preferential voting, and the election of Wheeler was upheld.

The last year the HRP managed to elect an Ann Arbor city councilmember was 1974. In 1976, voters approved a charter amendment repealing preferential voting, and the HRP faded from the scene. In the following 19 years, city council control bounced back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans. That bouncing was ended by a 1992 charter amendment, which changed election dates. [.pdf of current Ann Arbor city charter]

Moving Election Dates

The original 1851 charter called for city elections to be held on the first Monday in April. That definition of election day persisted for 131 years, until an amendment of the current charter in 1992 moved the election to November.

The amendment moved the city primary election from February to August and the city general election from April to November. Proponents of the amendment contended it would result in city council contests being decided at an election with the largest voter turnout. Eventually, however, the result was the opposite. The Republican Party virtually disappeared from Ann Arbor politics. No Republican has been elected to city council since 2003.

Ann Arbor city council contests are now functionally decided among Democrats in the August primary when the lowest voter turnout can be expected. Ann Arbor is once again a one-party town.

Other Cities with Partisan Elections

Ann Arbor is one of only three Michigan cities that still have partisan voting in local elections. The other two are Ypsilanti and Ionia. [Ypsilanti convened a charter commission last year that submitted to the state attorney general a draft charter that would change Ypsilanti's local elections to be non-partisan. But up to now the attorney general's office has not completed its review of the new language.]

In 1985, a Chamber of Commerce-based group held a petition drive for a charter amendment that would have made the Ann Arbor local elections non-partisan. It appeared that enough signatures had been obtained to put the matter on the ballot. However, one of the circulators filled out the petitions improperly. That flaw proved fatal for getting the matter on the ballot.

But the 2011 Ann Arbor city council elections revealed a small chink in the partisan armor that the charter commissioners drafted for the 1956 charter, and that was ratified by voters. The charter makes it possible only for potential nominees of a political party to participate in the August primary election. However, language that was probably inadvertent allows a person to become a nominee in the November election without a party designation.

In 2011, Jane Lumm – who had served on council as a Republican from 1993-98 – chose that approach in the Ward 2 city council election, and proved that city voters are willing to vote for a candidate who does not have a D or an R printed on the ballot next to their name.

The Ann Arbor city council now consists of 10 Democrats and one independent.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of local writers like Bruce Laidlaw. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!