Primary voters could pick nominees for Michigan secretary of state and attorney general under new proposals

“Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here. When Republicans and Democrats head to the polls in August for the Michigan primary, they’ll vote on nominees for U.S. Senate, governor, and several other offices. But they won’t have a say in who will be each party’s standard bearer for the important posts of attorney general and secretary of state. That will already have been decided , months ahead of time , by a narrow group of party insiders. Michigan is one of the only states where candidates for those positions are chosen by delegates at party conventions, not by voters in primary elections. But two new bipartisan proposals are looking to change that. On Thursday, Republican Rep. Greg Markkanen and Democratic Rep. Joe Tate introduced a proposed state constitutional amendment that would move the selection of attorney general and secretary of state nominees to primary elections starting in 2027. It would also eliminate elections for board members of the state’s three major public universities, giving the governor power to appoint those officials instead. A sister effort will be introduced by Republican Sen. Ed McBroom when the Senate next reconvenes. “Voters will get to know the candidates and what they stand for during the primary, and parties will be able to nominate candidates who can handle the rigors of a statewide campaign,” McBroom said in a statement Friday. Separately, two former party leaders have also teamed up to promote a similar effort. Jason Cabel Roe, the former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, and Lon Johnson, the former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, are launching a campaign to amend the Michigan Constitution to nominate attorney general and secretary of state candidates in primary elections, not at conventions. Getting either effort passed won’t be easy. First, two-thirds of each chamber of the legislature must vote to put the amendment before voters. Then, a majority of voters must approve the amendment in this November’s election. It’s technically still possible that it could go before voters in the August primary, but that’s unlikely because it would require the amendment to pass the legislature before June 5 , less than two weeks away. It’s unknown if either proposal will attract enough support to pass. Some legislators have already come out in favor of the idea, such as Democratic Rep. Noah Arbit , while others appear against it, such as Republican Rep. Matt Maddock . Roe and Johnson say they are optimistic after their conversations with leaders in the legislature, but on Wednesday, state House Speaker Matt Hall said he was “focusing on other things.” “This is not a divisive issue,” Johnson told Votebeat on Thursday. “This is something that both sides, across all spectrums of both parties, [are] looking to have done.” The change would benefit both major parties, Roe agreed. He laid the groundwork for the change back in 2022, the year Republicans selected Kristina Karamo as their secretary of state candidate and Matt DePerno as their attorney general candidate. Karamo’s and DePerno’s extremely far-right views — including a false belief that the 2020 election in the state was fraudulent — appealed to Republican convention delegates, but not general election voters. Karamo and DePerno lost to Democrats Jocelyn Benson and Dana Nessel by 14 and 9 percentage points, respectively. “I was talking to Democrats around the state [in 2022] and they agreed with it, were interested in pursuing a change,” Roe said. “Then, after kicking our ass in the ’22 election, they decided it was a uniquely Republican problem and they were not all that excited to help us save us from ourselves.” But this year’s Democratic convention got a lot of Democrats interested again, he said. That convention left many delegates frustrated after problems with the website on which they voted caused the convention to run hours longer than expected. There are also concerns from establishment Democrats about whether the candidates selected at this year’s convention, who tended to be farther left, will face their own electability challenges. In the time since, the convention has gotten even more bad press, with some delegates reporting they broke party rules by voting in the convention remotely and others raising concerns that their votes weren’t counted properly — or perhaps at all. “All of a sudden my phone started ringing, and people were interested in revisiting it,” Roe said. Now, Roe, Johnson, and others are working with lawmakers to bring a proposed amendment to the legislature floor. They’re tight-lipped about who specifically might sponsor their own effort, saying they don’t want to get ahead of internal politics. This week, during the Mackinac Policy Conference, they intend to gather more support from not just political leaders, but other attendees, including business and nonprofit leaders. Roe and Johnson said they might later turn their attention to other offices whose candidates are also chosen at conventions — Michigan Supreme Court seats, for example, or university trustees — but for now, they’re focused on moving the races they consider most critical. “We can’t boil the ocean here,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to move very deliberately, and we cannot have a ballot that’s too long and complicated. Reform doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.” Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org .

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