There are some obvious problems with the current charter that need change. But I did not vote for the current revision process because of fears over how it would be run (for example, having 36 candidates running for 9 seats in a low turnout May election). It is better to have revisions be made through a selection of amendments.

Nevertheless, I totally recognize the voters' desire to revise the whole thing since we have not seen enough amendments to the charter in recent years. I tried to write up an amendment myself when City Council was unable to organize ten years ago, but I quickly realized there is little capacity for ordinary citizens to get the 4000 signatures needed for an amendment. 

I am running for this commission because I want our charter to be revised based on what the evidence says will improve our city government. I am a political scientist who studies campaigns and elections and who cares about representation. I hope my perspective and reasoning will convince the commission members and voters that some popular ideas for reform would not achieve what voters want and risk even worse consequences. 

Lansing should have an odd number of council members because they typically get more work done. The easiest way to address that problem is by increasing the size of council to nine total. 

Why Lansing should increase beyond nine (to say eleven) is less clear, and there is little justification based on the claims proponents have made as of yet.

Some people think increasing the size of council will make it more diverse. But there is no reason to expect that, and it can actually have the opposite effect. If we want a more diverse council, then a much bigger issue is how much should council members be paid and compensated, not how many seats serve on council. For instance, if we were to increase council seats to fifteen and divide up the current council salary budget into smaller slices, then that will mean many underrepresented groups will be economically excluded because they cannot afford to hold office and dedicate uncompensated time to its efforts. City politics is usually overly represented by older, long-time resident, homeowners. If you want those voices to remain more powerful, then increasing the size of council while paying each council person less is a great way to do it. Notably, a much larger city like Detroit has nine council members and kept it at nine when voting on a charter revision in 2011. 

Would it be better to have more wards? Not clearly in Lansing's case. More wards can lead to more gerrymandering and competition between wards over resources. Women are more likely to be elected in at-large contests. And the most recent research generally finds that a change from at-large to wards only has benefits for diversity of representation in very select cases. First, the residential population has to have a high degree of residential segregation by race or class. Second, the voters of that group have to vote similarly. There is no evidence wards increase representation for underrepresented gender or racial groups outside of those contexts. Things could be better, but Lansing ranks relatively well compared to other cities on racial segregation measures. Our racial indices of dissimilarity compared to whites are below 33 for Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians (lower values mean less segregation) and have been steadily declining since the 1980s. The voters of Lansing also predominately support one political party and that support is fairly uniform across the city. Our current ward system likely provided African Americans with better representation when the current charter was adopted because Lansing was much more racially segregated at the time. There is no reason to expect that adding more wards would do the same today for them or any other racial minority.

Debates over strong mayor-council, weak mayor-council, vs. council-manager are often oversimplified. There is no clear evidence that one form produces better management than the other. There are multiple costs and benefits to each form, and the balance of those costs and benefits depends on the qualities of the city and its residents. 

I have yet to hear an argument for changing Lansing's strong mayor-council system that makes its case by saying Lansing is a type of city that would benefit from a change. Based on my reading, there is no reason to justify moving away from our strong mayor system that applies to Lansing’s current situation.

Lansing is neither highly segregated nor divided politically, especially compared to other cities. The city needs leadership just as much (if not more) as it needs management. A significant change away from the mayor system that Lansing currently has would be costly for our leaders and the public, with huge transition costs as roles and responsibilities are relearned. Interestingly, prominent cities, like Minneapolis, have recently moved towards a stronger mayor system.

Moreover, Lansing is at the point right now where it needs a strong innovator and spokesperson for the city. I may not have approved of many of the policy actions and revenue-making proposals of past Lansing mayors (such as a downtown casino), but I still recognize that a city like Lansing benefits from an active mayor who was working to propose new avenues for city development. 

No! Lansing City Council is relatively incapacitated because nothing passes on 4-4 tie votes and there is no mayoral tiebreaker. Our current system effectively requires City Council to have a 5-3 majority (62.5%) to pass anything. That is more anti-majoritarian than the US Senate's filibuster rules! It also requires a 6-2 majority (75%) to override a mayoral veto, that is also more stringent than the US Constitution! Adding a single council seat to allow for 5-4 majorities and 6-3 overrides would go along way to strengthen its own cooperation and strengthen its oversight of the mayor.

Generally yes. It would save the city money. It would increase turnout in local elections. And, as summarized by recent research, there is no evidence that moving to even-year elections dramatically changes the partisan or ideological balance of the electorate. School board elections are required by state law to be on even years, and Grand Rapids recently switched to even-year elections in 2020. The only people who lose out are the the local moneyed interest groups who will have to pay a lot more money to get through the noise of even-year elections and try to campaign against or for their favored candidates for council or mayor.

Ranked choice voting is gaining popularity and is useful in some cases. But it is unclear why it should be adopted in Lansing. Here are three reasons to not make it a priority for charter revisions:

1. Current law in the state of Michigan forbids cities from using it.

2. Recent published and working research shows that ballots in ranked choice elections are much more likely to be rejected and those errors causing rejection are much more likely to occur in poorer and less educated areas. Why choose a method of election that disenfranchises a group that already faces barriers to representation?

3. Ranked choice voting is a solution to a problem Lansing doesn't have. It makes most sense to adopt in areas with multiple candidate or party competitions that do not limit the field of candidates and only one choice is being selected, such that the winner can have less than 20% of the voters' support (for example, over 30 candidates for 9 city charter commission slots). Lansing's current non-partisan top-two (or top-four for at-large council) primary system is a suitable method for running municipal elections. Such primary elections are useful for narrowing the field and focusing voter attention before general elections. When elections have many candidates, it can cause voter confusion and less informed voting. If there was a viable use of ranked choice voting, it would be to vote like Alaska and use an instant runoff voting system when only ranking four or fewer candidates in an at-large council general election.

There are other great candidates, but I provide two clear value adds to the commission. First, I know how to read the research literature on which municipal reforms do and do not work and what findings are or are not applicable to our situation in Lansing. I would prioritize that evidence for making my decisions about charter reforms. Second, I am trained in survey and community input methods, and would be focused on making sure all voices get heard in the process, not just the loudest voices. This charter needs to be passed by the voting public, and this commission needs to be listening to Lansing voters - not the special interests run by their out-of-town associates.