Mandamus relief ordering defendants-city clerk & city election commission to strike the names of city council candidates from the ballot in an upcoming election; Mandamus as an extraordinary remedy; Berry v. Garrett; Rental Prop. Owners Ass’n of Kent Cnty. v. Kent Cnty. Treasurer; MCL 168.323 & 168.719 (powers & duties of city election commissions); Effect of a city charter making the city council the sole judge of the election & qualifications of its own members; McLeod v. State Bd. of Canvassers; Grand Rapids v. Harper; Houston v. McKinley; Applicability of the rules of statutory construction to city ordinances & charters; Gora v. Ferndale; Barrow v. Detroit Election Comm’n; Ministerial act defined; Hillsdale Cnty. Sr. Servs., Inc. v. Hillsdale Cnty.

Holding that plaintiff-city council candidate failed to meet the first three requirements for mandamus relief, the court reversed the trial court’s order granting his complaint for mandamus and ordering defendants-city clerk and city election commission to strike the names of four other candidates from the primary election ballot. The court held that he did not show a clear legal right to have them disqualified from running, or that the clerk and election commission had a clear legal duty to strike their names from the ballot, or that the action he sought was purely ministerial. First, he failed to show that they were term-limited under the plain language of the city charter “or that the city government was misinterpreting or misapplying the relevant charter provisions. The specific language of § 4.4(d) states ‘[a] person shall not be eligible to hold the position of city council, city clerk or city treasurer for more than the greater of three (3) complete terms or twelve (12) years in that particular office.’” The court found that while “the words ‘that particular office” in § 4.4 could be interpreted to distinguish between terms served as city council member, clerk, or treasurer, there is room for reasonable disagreement with regard to whether there should also be a distinction between council members elected by district and at-large.” Thus, the city’s interpretation “was not clearly wrong.” As a result, plaintiff did not show “a clear legal right to have the four incumbents’ names removed from” the ballot. As to a clear legal duty, neither MCL 168.323 nor MCL 168.719 gives city election commissions “the power to assess whether a candidate is ineligible for a particular office on the basis of term limits.” The language of MCL 168.323 in fact limits their “functions to the purely ministerial tasks of preparing and furnishing ballots on the basis of the results certified by the board of county canvassers.” Further, the city charter gives “the power to apply the terms of the charter and determine whether candidates are ineligible to run for office” to the city council (subject to state election law and court review), not the clerk or elections commission. Thus, defendants lacked “the authority to determine the candidates’ eligibility under the city charter and so could not strike their names from the ballot.” Finally, deciding between competing interpretations of city charter language as to term limits is not purely a ministerial act.