Mayor TenHaken breaks tie to kill bill that would lower vote threshold in council elections

Mayor Paul TenHaken cast the tie-breaking vote Tuesday evening as the Sioux Falls City Council rejected a proposal to lower the threshold needed to win some municipal elections.

The passage of the ordinance, sponsored by outgoing councilors Greg Neitzert and Pat Starr, would have meant that candidates for seats on the council need only a plurality of the votes as opposed to a majority — meaning the required vote share would drop from 50% to 34%.

It would have been a return to how council elections worked prior to September 2017, when the majority requirement was adopted during a heated council meeting.

Instead, it was shot down at first reading — a rarity for a body that moves nearly all items to a second reading as a courtesy.

In his opening comments, Starr said the 50% requirement was keeping people from running from office. He said the likelihood of having to campaign for both a general election and a runoff was daunting and criticized the concept that someone elected with as little as 34% of the vote wasn't "legitimate."

Councilor Greg Neitzert, meanwhile, defended his support of the ordinance, saying that the original move to a majority requirement had been based on a dislike of former Councilor Theresa Stehly, who won her seat in 2016 with 44% of the vote.

More: Richard Thomason wins At-Large C seat in Sioux Falls runoff election

"Let's just throw it out there," Neitzert said. "A previous councilor that was elected with me and Councilor Starr was elected. And some people I think didn't like that, and so an ordinance came forward to change it to 50%, because the candidate, which others had wanted, lost because there were two people in the race that were similarly aligned."

Neitzert also said that he couldn't imagine running for council the same way he did when first elected eight years ago.

"In 2016, when I ran, I was an unknown. I mostly self-funded. I had just a handful of donors. In this environment now, I don't think there's probably any way, if I was in the same position I was eight years ago, that I'd be here. Because the amount of money that's being spent on elections has increased dramatically on council elections. You have tens of thousands of dollars, before it used to cost maybe $5,000."

And he pointed to the most recent election, which under the proposed rules would have been done on April 9 when Richard Thomason got 44% of the vote over Jordan Deffenbaugh's 35.8%. Instead, it went to an April 30 runoff, where Thomason won.

"We just forced another $50,000- $60,000 of tax dollars to be spent doing an election that essentially had the same result," he said.

More: Mayor TenHaken says moving Sioux Falls elections to June could get more people to the polls

The proposal was too much too soon for some members of the council, however.

"This is too big a policy change to have such a short discussion on," said Councilor Curt Soehl, who said he'd want to hear more at an informational meeting, like input from people who wrote the charter, the past council members who instituted the change, data on voting.

He added that he'd be willing to consider it in the future.

Councilor Rich Merkouris also said he would have offered an amendment to refer the issue to committee had it passed. He said he was interested in having the discussion, but also praised the runoff election's effects, as well as the majority vote requirement.

"Forcing somebody to get to 51% forces somebody to compromise and collaborate," he said. "I think that's a good skill to bring to this governing body."

Councilor Alex Jensen, meanwhile, fell in the middle, saying that if the ordinance moved forward he would be bringing an amendment to bump the requirement up to 40%.

The vote ended in a 4-4 tie, with Councilors David Barranco, Merkouris, Starr and Neitzert voting yes, and Councilors Sarah Cole, Marshall Selberg, Soehl and Jensen voting against it.

TenHaken said that "for all the reasons of the opponents," he would be voting against it.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: TenHaken votes down bill that would lower council election threshold