This graphic was poached from a column written for The Chronicle last year by former city attorney Bruce Laidlaw – advocating for non-partisan elections. Laidlaw’s argument was based in part on the idea that it reduces the potential for lame ducks. It might also encourage more competition and participation. (Image links to Laidlaw’s column.)

How bad is it? The August 2012 Democratic primary featured contested races in four of the city’s five wards – with voter turnout ranging from a high of 13.9% in Ward 5 to a low of 8.2% in Ward 1.

In Wards 1 and 4, the winner received less than 1,000 votes. That compared to a citywide turnout of 56.2% in the November 2012 mayor’s race.

What about the Republican primary? If you’re not familiar with Ann Arbor politics, that’s a punch line.

Only in Ward 5 did voters have a choice of city council candidates in November 2012 – Republican Stuart Berry or Democrat Chuck Warpehoski. And 62% of the ward’s voters turned out to choose Warpehoski – by a wide margin. In the other wards, the decision had already been made – in August, by fewer than 10% of registered voters in those wards. In Ward 3, no candidate stepped forward as an alternative to incumbent Democrat Christopher Taylor, in either the primary or the general election.

While Anglin recently lamented the lack of participation in the Democratic primary, I don’t think that exhorting residents to vote on Aug. 6 is likely to bump participation to anywhere near the level we might see in November. So the decisions about who represents Ann Arbor residents on the city council will likely again this year be made when less of the electorate will head to the polls – in August, not November.

But Ward 2 will be a definite exception. That’s because voters will choose between two formidable candidates in November: Democrat Kirk Westphal (unopposed in the primary) and incumbent Jane Lumm, who’s indicated she’ll again be campaigning as an independent. They might be joined by independent Conrad Brown, if he submits enough signatures by the August deadline.  Still, in Ward 2, there’s no question the choice will be made in November, not August.

In Wards 1, 3 and 4, other independent candidates affiliated with a University of Michigan student group calling itself the Mixed Use Party have taken out petitions. None have yet filed the required signatures. But to the extent they prove to be serious candidates, voters in those wards might also feel they were offered a legitimate choice in November.

But when three legitimate candidates take out petitions, why are we forcing a selection between just two of them – precisely at a time of year when few voters turn up at the polls to make that selection?

Take Ward 3 as an example. Julie Grand, current chair of the city’s park advisory commission, and incumbent Democrat Stephen Kunselman are solid choices. They’ll be offered to voters in August. Only one will advance to the November general election. And as voters get to know him, independent Sam DeVarti – if he files his nominating petitions – could also prove to be another solid choice in November.

If they’re all three credible candidates, I think a more rational approach to an August primary would be to use that initial election to winnow the field of all three (or more) candidates down to two. That way the important choice, between the two finalists, would come in November, when more voters participate. Or all the candidates could be offered to voters in November, with no primary election at all.

It’s fairly common now for a city council election to draw only two candidates, both Democrats, who compete in August. If there’s no other candidate in the race at all, it would be more rational to offer those same two candidates to voters in November, when many more voters participate.

That kind of rational approach to candidate choice would be possible if Ann Arbor city council elections were non-partisan.

But under the city charter, Ann Arbor city council elections are conducted on a partisan basis.

Last year around this time, former city attorney Bruce Laidlaw wrote two op-eds for The Chronicle, the first explaining the historical background for Ann Arbor’s partisan system, and the second making a case for changing the city charter to provide for non-partisan elections.

There seems to be at least some interest this year in moving the idea forward. One indication came in a response to a recent Ward 2 resident satisfaction survey. An open-ended question asked respondents to identify the one issue that councilmembers should focus on in the next six months. Among the question’s many responses was this one: “Implement a non-partisan election process for city council and mayor.”

A question about non-partisan elections also was posed this week to Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje, who spoke at a Rotary Club lunch.

At the June 12 Ann Arbor Rotary Club meeting – held at the Michigan Union – Steve Dobson asked Hieftje for his thoughts on non-partisan elections. Dobson, who served as treasurer of councilmember Jane Lumm’s 2011 campaign, noted that Ann Arbor is one of only three cities in the state that hold partisan city council elections. [The other two cities are Ypsilanti and Ionia.]

Most Michigan cities either originally adopted a non-partisan system or have chosen to convert, Dobson said. He asked Hieftje why non-partisan elections haven’t gotten any traction in Ann Arbor, and he wondered what Hieftje personally felt is the case for and against that approach.

Hieftje’s response:

A few [cities] have switched from partisan to non-partisan, but most of that was put into their charters. It was in Ann Arbor’s charter from the very beginning, and it is an interesting issue and one that doesn’t get discussed a whole lot.

I can give you one side that I heard at a dinner party a few weeks ago. Of course, these were mostly Democrats and one of them had to say, ‘Well, they never worried about that for the hundred years before the mid-1990s when it was totally governed by Republicans.’ But it’s an interesting issue.

It would require a change of the charter, and a vote of the people. That would have to get on the ballot and that could require close to 10,000 signatures – or it’s something the city council could put on the ballot. I don’t know that that’ll happen. I’m not sure it would pass in the city, what the electorate would have to say about that. So those are only guesses. It’s certainly a conversation that can continue.

I would not mind at all running for office in a non-partisan environment. I think the other side of the argument that you asked me to talk about is some people really respect those labels. If they’re not following issues closely, they can tell something about that candidate from their party label – although sometimes you wonder that the party label doesn’t work anymore. So it’s hard to tell. It’s an issue with some different sides and a robust conversation perhaps could be had.

In resuscitating the issue this year, I’m mindful that there’s only about a two-month window of opportunity for the city council to act to place a ballot question before voters in November. By late August, a council decision will need to be made on that.

As other issues compete for the time and attention of councilmembers, it’s important to give them a nudge – if you think we’d benefit from a chance to decide for ourselves to switch to non-partisan elections. Contact information for city councilmembers is on the city’s website.

Chronicle publisher Mary Morgan contributed to this column. The Chronicle could not survive without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the Ann Arbor city council. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’ve already elected to support us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too! 

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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