ANN ARBOR, MI – For the second time in three months, Mayor Christopher Taylor is using his veto power.

Taylor delivered an expected veto Friday afternoon, July 5, flexing his political muscle to try to preserve partisan elections in Ann Arbor.

The mayor is vetoing City Council’s 7-4 vote this week to place a nonpartisan elections proposal on the November ballot.

Taylor wants to keep the proposal off the ballot, while a majority of council argues it’s time for voters to decide whether the city should do away with party labels for mayor and council candidates.

It takes eight votes to override a mayoral veto.

Taylor informed council and the media of his veto about 5 p.m. Friday, drawing criticism from some colleagues.

Council Member Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, called it a direct assault on democracy and said Ann Arbor deserves better leadership.

Council Member Jane Lumm, a 2nd Ward independent, hopes the proposal still ends up on the ballot through a citizen petition effort, though thousands of signatures would need to be collected.

“The fight for democracy and representative government continues, despite the hurdles placed before the electorate by the elected officials, no less. Feels like 1776,” Lumm wrote in an email responding to the mayor, signing it: “A disenfranchised elected official and taxpayer without representation.”

Read Taylor’s full veto letter:

Today I vetoed a non-partisan election resolution. Party labels tell a lot about a person's values and priorities. I... Posted by Christopher Taylor on Friday, July 5, 2019

Ann Arbor is one of only a few cities in Michigan that have partisan local elections, along with Ypsilanti and Ionia.

Because the city’s electorate is heavily Democratic, that effectively makes the August Democratic primary the deciding contest for mayor and council seats in most cases, often with Democratic primary winners advancing unopposed to the November general election.

Lumm, the only non-Democrat on the 11-member council, brought forward the now-vetoed proposal in hopes of having more competitive contests for mayor and council in November when voter turnout is higher than in the August primaries.

Lumm, who previously served as a Republican, argues party labels are meaningless at the city level, while Taylor, a Democrat, argues they help inform voters about candidates’ values.

“Voters have a right to know where candidates stand. Voters have a right to know more about a candidate, not less,” Taylor wrote in his veto letter sent to the city clerk.

“The proposed change would, in my view, create a real and substantial harm by preventing the inclusion of vital candidate information on the ballot,” the mayor concluded. “This crucial omission would reduce the ability of Ann Arbor voters to make an informed choice and make it more difficult to ensure that they are represented by officials who reflect and share their values and priorities.”

He questioned whether a Republican-led council would, for instance, support the existence and empowerment of the city’s human rights and police oversight commissions, the city’s climate action plan and other environmental initiatives, the city’s use of taxpayer dollars to fund nonprofit human services programs, the city’s work around public housing, the city’s support for gay rights and equality, and the city’s refusal to cooperate with feds on immigrant detainment requests.

“No, it would not,” he wrote. “I could go on.”