City of Lincoln officials set to propose alternative charter amendments

Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird and City Council Chairman Brodey Weber plan to announce alternative charter amendments that could appear on the November ballot.

This comes after a Wednesday Nebraska Supreme Court ruling that ordered the city to place three Lincoln charter amendment petitions on the November ballot. The court said city officials “have a ministerial duty to submit the amendments at that election.”

Attorney General Mike Hilgers sued the Lincoln City Council on Aug. 27 after City Attorney Yohance Christie said the City Council wouldn’t take action to add the petitions to the general election ballot this year.

After the ruling, Christie announced the city would follow the court’s ruling and place the three amendments on Monday’s City Council agenda.

“The Lincoln voters did the hard work of gathering enough signatures to earn a spot on the November ballot. Unfortunately, Lincoln’s elected officials decided to play political games instead of obeying the Constitution,” Hilgers said in a statement.

Lincoln city code allows for the council to place competing proposals on the same ballot, according to Article XI, Sec. 4.

Gaylor Baird and Weber, who are both Democrats, said they will reveal their proposals at a news conference Monday Morning.

The deadline to add petitions to the November ballot was Sept. 1. However, in Hilgers’ request, he said the city could use a Sept. 11 deadline, which is the last day for the Secretary of State to certify petitions for the ballot.

That deadline was Friday.

Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen told Nebraska Public Media News that he has a hard deadline of Sept. 18 before ballots get sent to overseas voters and mail-in ballots are sent.

Secretary of State Bob Evnen certified the statewide ballot Friday. However, that doesn’t affect local ballot initiatives.

The three original charter amendments are from the Good Government Lincoln group, led by former state tax commissioner and state Sen. Tony Fulton. The group also lists Axiom Strategies’ Jessica Flanagain, Daniel Bass and Zoe Ganzman.

The first of the three petitions hopes to allow some people living outside Lincoln to vote in city elections. The two other petitions seek to realign Lincoln elections with statewide elections and add term limits for Lincoln City Council members.

City officials had argued that it requires at least two City Council meetings to approve the petitions. The city also said it didn’t have enough time due to the first round of petitions not meeting the signature threshold. It proposed putting the amendments on the May city election ballot rather than the November general election ballot.

More than 13,000 signatures were rejected the first time by Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen due to suspected fraud. Seven paid circulators have been arrested so far in connection with the suspected fraud.