Three GOP-leaning petitions seek to restructure Lincoln city elections

LINCOLN — A former state tax commissioner and Republican who served in the Legislature is leading a Lincoln effort to change the dates of city elections, let certain residents outside city limits vote in municipal elections and place term limits on Lincoln City Council members.

The group known as “Good Government Lincoln,” led by Former State Sen. Tony Fulton, a Lincoln business owner who served as tax commissioner under former Gov. Pete Ricketts, filed three petitions this week with the Lincoln City Clerk’s Office. A news release from conservative political consulting firm Axiom Strategies says the goal is to increase voter participation and ensure “everyone has a voice on who represents them.”

“These charter amendments are designed to give residents of Lincoln a stronger voice in city government, prevent the pitfalls of career politicians and ensure more voters are engaged with our city elections,” Fulton said in a statement.

Fulton and supporters are seeking to amend Lincoln’s city charter during the Nov. 3 general election and aim to begin gathering signatures June 8, according to documents between the law firm of former State Sen. Andrew La Grone of Dunbar and the Lincoln City Clerk’s Office.

Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen told the Nebraska Examiner that the campaign will need signatures from at least 5% of registered Lincoln voters during the state’s last gubernatorial race, in November 2022. That’s just shy of 5,000. He and other city, county and state officials could not immediately answer when those signatures would be due.

Lincoln mayor fires back

While signature gathering kicks off soon, Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird, a Democrat who has led Lincoln’s capital city since 2019 and is now in her second four-year term, is already blasting Fulton’s camp.

In a Facebook post published around noon Wednesday, hours before Fulton and the consultant announced the petition effort, Gaylor Baird’s campaign team blasted the petitions as coming from “MAGA donors” with ideas “straight out of the Donald Trump playbook.”

“They can’t beat Mayor Leirion, so they are trying to change the rules and misrepresent their proposals,” her campaign said.

“These folks don’t deserve your trust,” her post continued. “Don’t be fooled by their silly and transparently MAGA partisan plans designed to distract the community from the mayor and the council’s successful efforts to keep the community safe, fix our streets and stand up for Lincoln’s working families. We need to reject MAGA’s misguided priorities.”

The Examiner obtained the petition language under a public records request to the Lincoln City Clerk’s Office following Gaylor Baird’s post.

Election timing and term limits

The first petition would eliminate Lincoln’s practice of holding city elections every odd year and instead align its local primary and general elections with statewide elections, beginning in 2028.

The city’s three at-large City Council members, who were elected to four-year terms in 2025, would instead serve through 2030, almost five-year terms. Meanwhile, the mayor and four district-bound City Council members who will be elected to four-year terms next year, in 2027, would have their terms shortened to end in 2028, which would be a one-and-a-half-year term.

State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha, a Democrat, passed a law in 2025 to give Lincoln and Omaha voters the ability to move off-year elections to match statewide dates.

Another petition would limit Lincoln City Council members to two consecutive four-year terms. For purposes of the proposed city charter change, council terms beginning before 2027 would not count in calculating consecutive years of service. Voters implemented term limits on Lincoln’s mayor in 2018, limiting those serving to three consecutive four-year terms.

Under these proposals, district-representing City Council members elected in 2027 could run again in 2028, but they would be term-limited by the end of 2032. The three at-large City Council members could seek reelection in 2030 and 2034 and serve through 2038.

Gaylor Baird has not yet announced whether she will seek a third term next year. She faced one of the most expensive Lincoln mayoral races in 2023 against former State Sen. Suzanne Geist, who now works in the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office.

Should Gaylor Baird run and win next year, she would be term-limited by the 2028 election under the first petition, rather than by the middle of 2031. 

Nonresident voters?

The final petition would allow eligible people living in Lincoln’s three-mile “extraterritorial zoning jurisdiction” to vote in city elections, excluding city bond elections. These residents are subject to certain city zoning ordinances and regulations but do not pay the same taxes to the city as city residents, including property taxes.

Currently, qualified Lincoln voters must live within city limits for at least three months to participate in city elections.

State Sen. Beau Ballard of Lincoln offered a similar legislative proposal this spring for all extraterritorial jurisdictions before narrowing his bill to just Lincoln and Omaha, and then just Lincoln. Facing resistance from Democratic senators in the officially nonpartisan Legislature and Lincoln city officials, while also coming in the waning days of the legislative session, the time crunch of which could have doomed other bills, Ballard withdrew his proposal.

Opponents argued the measure was “representation without taxation” because many city zoning boards include one or two representatives from the extraterritorial areas and was partisan in nature, with some arguing that conservatives might benefit from the political makeup of voters residing in the rural areas just outside Lincoln. 

Ballard and supporters contend that the current law, letting Lincoln dictate development within its zoning jurisdiction, is “taxation without representation” and that there are not enough voters in the three-mile radius to sway the election. Gaylor Baird won by about 7,800 votes in 2023. 

About 10,000 people live in the three-mile area outside Lincoln.