Committee recommends adding party designations to Newport News City Council elections
The Newport News Charter Review Committee unanimously voted to recommend eliminating the city's prohibition on partisan primary elections for City Council candidates.
The change would not add anything to the current voting process. If multiple candidates filed under the same political party run for City Council, then those candidates would be added to the existing partisan primary ballot for other races, where party designations would be visible to voters.
'By doing this, that's not going to dictate whether or not there's a primary,' committee co-chair Lee Vreeland said during Thursday's meeting. 'It's just as long as there is a primary, then it will be reflected.'
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The recommendation is one of a series of city charter changes the committee is presenting to the City Council for review. To change the city's charter, the City Council must ask the General Assembly to make amendments.
State law bars party designations in local elections from appearing on general election ballots. Most cities in Hampton Roads are barred by their city charters from having partisan council elections, but some Virginia cities do hold primaries for those positions. The change would create a system where general election ballots do not contain party designations, but the final candidates are implied to be from different political parties. Independent candidates would still be allowed to run, and a primary would not be held for them.
Vreeland said during the meeting her vote was a reflection of the community feedback voicing overwhelming support for the change.
'There has not been a single person who has said that they don't support it,' Vreeland said. 'For me, it's important that it is known that I listened.'
The committee received eight emails from residents voicing support for partisan voting, along with one speaker. One came from Mary Vause, a Newport News resident who said partisan primaries minimize the risk of spoiler candidates winning a City Council seat.
'Without partisan local elections, most voters do not know the party affiliation of candidates who are running for local office, making it difficult for voters to make an informed decision' Vause wrote in an email.
The vote came during the committee's last meeting before submitting its report to the City Clerk's office June 30. It will then be up to the City Council to review.
City Council appointed members to the committee in April 2024 to examine the City Charter and look for areas of improvement, and its first meeting was last July. The city considered requesting several charter change amendments in 2023, but ultimately held off due to a lack of consensus.
Other recommendations already approved for City Council review include having council appoint School Board members rather than hold elections, and making the mayor a full-time position, limited to two terms.
However, the committee rejected recommending shifting the power to remove department heads from the city manager to the mayor, and is definitively against creating a strong mayor system in Newport News.
'If it was to imply of leave open for interpretation whether or not a full-time mayor would leave any room for a strong mayor, I would have to not vote for full-time mayor,' Vreeland said. 'I think we do need to make a statement.'
Additionally, the committee opted not to make a recommendation on ranked choice voting in Newport News, because council already has the authority to adopt it without a charter adjustment.
Devlin Epding, 757-510-4037, devlin.epding@virginiamedia.com
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