Michigan voters were set to decide Tuesday, Nov. 3, whether to approve State Proposition 2, a statewide measure that would prohibit regulated gas and electric utilities from making political contributions. State Proposition 2 would also bar companies with at least $250,000 in government contracts, utility executives, immediate family members and other people with close connections to the companies from making contributions. In Ann Arbor, one of Michigan’s largest cities, voters were set to consider Proposal E, which would establish a board to direct and manage the creation of a city-owned electric utility. After a second vote, that utility would replace DTE Energy as the city’s supplier. DTE Energy and Consumers Energy are among the nation’s largest utilities and serve about 80% of Michigan customers. The campaigns are not coordinated, but residents said politicians had failed to address controversial datacenters, high energy rates and poor electric reliability.

State Proposition 2 is modeled after state laws elsewhere that prohibit companies with government contracts, or companies that work closely with governments, from making political contributions. Instead of singling out utilities, the measure targets all companies with at least $250,000 in state contracts. Protect MI Free Speech, a utility-aligned group opposing the spending ban, claimed the initiative violated free-speech protections under the Citizens United ruling that struck down limits on companies’ donations to candidates. The proposal’s architects said they had figured out how to get around Citizens United and had intentionally designed the measure to survive a challenge invoking the ruling. The Guardian wrote: “If voters approve either proposal, a bitter legal fight is virtually guaranteed.”

Recent statewide polling found broad bipartisan support for the spending ban, with 71% of respondents backing it. The Guardian reported that optimism was high and the Ann Arbor public-power initiative appeared to have momentum. Christy McGillivray, executive board co-chair of Michiganders for Money Out of Politics, said the problems in Michigan “are a microcosm of the nation” and that political spending was a root cause of those problems. She also said 93% of legislators took utility-industry money in a recent session. “There’s so much energy and momentum behind this,” McGillivray said. “Pay-to-play politics keeps elected officials from actually tackling what voters really want, which is real solutions to the cost of living and utility bills, and they won’t if utilities keep bankrolling their campaigns.”

Allies among Ann Arbor’s city leadership filed a last-minute lawsuit this week to stop the public-power initiative. The lawsuit claims Ann Arbor for Public Power proposed a city charter amendment even though a new utility requires a full charter revision. Brian Geiringer, the group’s executive director, said Michigan’s attorney general had already found that the proposal required only a charter amendment, not a full revision. When he learned of the lawsuit, he told local media, “We must be winning.”

Geiringer said DTE Energy is unpopular in Ann Arbor because of unreliable service, general resistance to clean energy and a lack of accountability. He said the appeal of public power lies in direct, democratic control over an essential service. “The question of whether a private, shareholder corporation or publicly owned entity that you’re a part of is in control of your electricity – that is an extremely poignant question at this moment,” Geiringer said.

For nearly a decade, Ann Arbor opposed the public-power proposal and instead implemented a Sustainable Energy Utility that allows city residents to generate rooftop solar or community clean energy. DTE Energy still owns and maintains the grid and sets rates, which public-power advocates identify as main problems. The city also installed a former DTE Energy executive to run the Sustainable Energy Utility, drawing questions from clean-energy advocates.

The Guardian reported that DTE Energy and Consumers Energy have supported dark-money nonprofits, political action committees and groups opposing the proposals. DTE Energy and Protect MI Vote, an anti-Proposition 2 group affiliated with DTE Energy, did not respond to requests for comment. Protect MI Vote told the Detroit News: “This is not over on November 3. We believe … this is going to go on for years. And it’s going to cost a lot of money to protect people’s first amendment freedoms.”

Consumers Energy spokesperson Katie Carey said the campaign against utility spending and the environmental nonprofit allies of that campaign also take dark money. In a statement to The Guardian, Carey wrote that the proposal “won’t eliminate money in politics – it will simply shift influence away from Michigan companies and toward wealthy national donors and special interests, similar to the dark money funders of their ballot proposal” and that “Meanwhile, local employers and their employees risk being sidelined.”

DTE Energy and Consumers Energy are regulated monopolies with full control over their service territories, but state regulators must approve rate increases, grid-maintenance decisions and clean-energy plans. Consumer advocacy groups have alleged that the Michigan Public Service Commission, which regulates the utilities and is led by governor appointees, has largely allowed the companies to prioritize shareholder and industry interests over residential customers’ needs.

The Guardian reported that federal data places Michigan among the nation’s worst for the frequency and length of power outages. It also reported that DTE Energy and Consumers Energy propose rate increases each year and have aligned themselves with datacenter projects opposed by residents because the energy-hungry facilities demand fossil-fuel resources that are profitable to the utilities. Industry experts said DTE Energy had not adequately kept pace for decades with replacing aging equipment, tree trimming and other grid maintenance, leaving the grid vulnerable to strong storms.

The initiatives underscore broader, growing discontent with many of the nation’s large utilities, said Karlee Weinmann, a researcher with the Energy and Policy Institute, which The Guardian described as a utility-industry watchdog. “What we’re seeing on a number of levels is the utilities’ political influence operations begin to break down under the weight of this public outrage over high bills, poor service, and lack of accountability, and I think both initiatives are reflective of that in their own ways,” Weinmann said.

According to The Guardian, many of Michigan’s utility problems originated under Republican leadership, but Democrats took full control of the state government in 2023 for the first time in 40 years, prompting hopes they would rein in the utilities. That did not happen. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic leadership received large donations from DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, and every piece of legislation opposed by the utilities died.

McGillivray said residents had lost confidence that either party could solve the issues. She spent a day earlier this year at the state Republican Party’s nominating convention and a No Kings rally and received the same response at each. “They were excited about it, they wanted to learn more,” McGillivray said. “It gives me hope.”

Michigan residents rallied against a $7 billion Stargate datacenter planned on southeast Michigan farmland on Dec. 1, 2025. Support from establishment Democrats and Republicans for numerous datacenter proposals helped crystallize bipartisan opposition to the utilities, The Guardian reported. During an intense battle last year over a Whitmer- and Donald Trump-backed datacenter being built just outside Ann Arbor, Whitmer appeared to tell an Oracle executive: “We’re used to people telling us no and doing it anyway.” The remark drew outrage.

The two votes could show whether residents want tighter limits on utility-linked political spending and whether they will support public ownership of an essential service. Organizers said the citizen-led campaigns represented test cases that could help gauge the US public’s appetite for structural change in the utility industry and what is legally possible.