All Bullhorn, No Gavel: Why Ann Arbor Needs Taylor, Not Rabhi
Posted onWhy I'm Voting for Christopher Taylor for Mayor #
TL;DR: Ann Arbor is too expensive, and people are right to want change. The role of the Ann Arbor mayor is that of the chair of the legislative body, and success depends on the ability to build a council majority. By that measure, the choice is clear. Taylor has a long record of actually moving a divided council toward more housing, stronger renter protections, and real climate action. Yousef Rabhi is a gifted activist, but his record in Lansing and on the County Commission is one of forceful criticism, not of passing consequential legislation. He's all bullhorn, no gavel, and the bullhorn isn't the job.
The best person for the job #
It's tempting to pick a mayor the way you'd pick a movement leader: who shares my values, who fights hardest, who inspires me. But Ann Arbor doesn't have a strong-mayor system. Our mayor is the chair of City Council (think Speaker of the House, not President). The powers are limited and almost entirely about working with ten other members: managing the agenda, nominating people to boards (subject to Council approval), and a veto that a Council supermajority can override.
That means the skills that make an effective Ann Arbor mayor aren't the skills of a great rally speaker. They're the unglamorous ones: building consensus, supporting good ideas other members bring, and cutting the compromises that keep the city moving instead of deadlocked. So the real question in this race isn't "who is more progressive." It's "who can actually get something done with this council." That's where I come down decisively for Taylor.
A note on where I'm coming from: two of the first political fundraisers I attended after moving back to Ann Arbor in 2014 were for Yousef Rabhi and for Christopher Taylor. I've supported Rabhi's runs for state office, I admire his activism, and I'm a frequent critic of Taylor myself. This isn't team loyalty. It's a judgment about which candidate will deliver results for the people who need them.
Taylor: slow, but in the right direction #
My frequent criticism of Taylor is that he's often been too cautious and too slow on the city's biggest challenges. But two things are true alongside that. First, a lot of the slowness is structural, not a lack of will: state law sharply limits what Michigan cities can do, and for years Taylor was chairing a council that included openly hostile members, the same faction that fired the city administrator over his objection, and that voters eventually turned out of office once they started paying attention. Second, the direction has been right, and the results are now arriving.
On housing, Taylor has helped reverse decades of artificially restricting what can be built here. The city stopped forcing developers to build parking nobody needs, which lowers construction costs and car dependence. It loosened restrictions to allow accessory dwelling units and more duplexes, and passed a Comprehensive Land Use Plan in line with peer cities that are starting to bend their rent curves downward. And the curve is bending here: Ann Arbor rents fell 6.1% over the year ending October 2025, far steeper than the U.S. (-0.8%) or the Midwest (-0.7%), and among the city's deepest declines in 15 years, as rising vacancies, a sign of more supply, ease prices (RealPage Market Analytics). This should have happened faster, but Taylor got a lot done.
On subsidized affordable housing, the turnaround has been significant. When Taylor took office, the city had no dedicated funding stream and was losing more subsidized affordable units than it was gaining. Under his leadership, the City extensively reviewed underused City-owned land for redevelopment to support affordable housing. He championed the 2020 affordable housing millage, which now puts millions a year into the trust fund. Years of that work are finally bearing fruit: Dunbar Tower in Kerrytown opened its first 63 units this year, and the 330-unit redevelopment at 350 S. Fifth Avenue downtown, backed by $35 million in city bonds, is moving forward. That's hundreds of permanently affordable homes that didn't exist on the old trajectory.
For renters, about half the city, Taylor created the Renters' Commission and helped pass its recommendations: eliminating exploitative junk fees, requiring cost transparency, creating a right to renew a lease, expanding rental inspections, and the green rental housing ordinance. State law limits what cities can do for tenants, so this is creative, legally defensible work that's still ongoing.
Taylor leads on climate #
Taylor's been the epitome of "leading from behind" on a lot of issues, but climate is one where he's genuinely been out front. He spearheaded the 2022 community climate-action millage, and before that the 40-40-20 funding policy that seeded the Office of Sustainability and the A2Zero plan. That funding is now producing things residents can actually use: the Sustainable Energy Utility, rebates for electrifying your home, and solar on city property.
This is also the clearest illustration of the difference between the two candidates. Rabhi's signature climate cause is fully municipalizing DTE's local grid. I understand the appeal. DTE is no one's friend. But Taylor was willing to move toward public power in a careful, funded way, and was overruled by a slim Council majority. The proposal activists are now trying to put on the ballot instead is, in my view, dangerously misguided: it's essentially an unfunded mandate, committing the city to tens of millions of dollars in studies and litigation before we even reach the real decision point. If you want to get something big done, the funding has to come first, and Taylor is the candidate who governs that way.
Rabhi: all bullhorn, no gavel #
I want to be fair to Yousef, because I genuinely respect him. He's a charismatic, fierce advocate, and in Lansing, facing a Republican majority and timid centrists, being a loud, uncompromising critic was a real asset, which is why I supported him then. But the mayor's job is the opposite of that job. It rewards the legislator who can count votes and cut deals, and Rabhi's record on the smaller, more aligned County Commission shows that's not his strength. Twice, on the Commission's most contentious oversight votes (both over control of the Sheriff's Office Human Resources department) he declined to put a vote on the record. On December 3, 2025, he left the meeting before the roll call and was recorded absent for Resolution 25-249 (and for the vote to enter closed session on collective bargaining and pending litigation). On February 18, 2026, he was recorded as "DID NOT VOTE" on Resolution 26-028, which reassigned Sheriff's Office HR functions to the Central Human Resources Department (Board of Commissioners meeting minutes; Board of Commissioners YouTube Video, timestamp). On the hard, on-the-record moments, he wasn't there to be counted. It's telling, too, that as of this writing, his endorsements don't appear to include the fellow commissioners and legislators who've actually had to work alongside him in a legislative body.
If he had a clear, achievable agenda that could bring a council along, the risk might be worth it. But his specifics, where he's offered them, tend to dissolve on contact with the details:
- On housing, he's said he doesn't support eliminating single-family zoning "writ large," opposes selling the city's Kline's lot to build housing on it, and argues supply and demand can't bring prices down. To his credit, he's clear about wanting to focus on publicly owned, permanently affordable housing, but that's something the city is already doing through the millage, Dunbar, and 350 S. Fifth. He hasn't explained how his approach differs from, or improves on, what's underway. We can build public and private housing at once. Taylor is doing both, while Rabhi would slow the private supply that also holds prices down.
- On city services, he wants more work done by city employees instead of contractors, and suggests it would save money. I'm sympathetic to the principle. But outsourcing is often cheaper precisely because contract workers are paid less. "We'll insource it and save money" is an extraordinary claim that needs evidence he hasn't provided. His go-to example of wasteful consulting was a broker hired for $700K to sell two city lots, which is exactly the kind of rare, specialized task a city should outsource rather than staff full-time. (He raises the $500K spent on supplemental snowplowing the same way.)
None of this makes Rabhi a bad person or even a bad advocate. It makes him a poor fit for a job that is, fundamentally, about governing a council rather than rallying a crowd. My worry is that a Mayor Rabhi would likely stall the slow-but-real progress we're finally seeing, and in practice deliver the one thing his loudest supporters in million-dollar homes actually want: protection of the status quo.
Picking the bus that's going your way #
A friend of mine likes to say that choosing a candidate is like choosing a bus. None of them goes from exactly where you are to exactly where you want to be. You pick the one that gets you closest. No candidate is perfect. Taylor certainly isn't, and his record on police accountability in particular remains a real blemish. But outcomes that change real people's lives matter more than which candidate's rhetoric thrills me most. On housing, on renters, on climate, Taylor's bus has been slowly but steadily heading the right way. Rabhi's, I fear, would idle at the curb.
The race will almost certainly be decided in the Democratic primary on Aug. 4. If you want a more affordable, more sustainable Ann Arbor and you want it to actually get built, vote for Christopher Taylor, and make sure you're registered and know where to vote.