Warren Mayor Jim Fouts is barred from running for a fifth term as mayor, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Friday.
Fouts, who has been mayor since 2007, is ineligible to run for reelection because of term limits approved by voters, the court ruled.
In 2016, voters limited the mayor to five terms. And in 2020, voters approved an amendment to the city charter that reduced the term limits for mayor to three terms.
The court ordered the Warren city clerk to “immediately disqualify Mayor Fouts as a candidate for mayor in 2023 and not place his name on the ballot for election.”
The decision reverses a lower court’s opinion in March that Fouts could run for reelection.
“Here, it is not disputed that Mayor Fouts has served the maximum three terms or 12 years,” the appellate court said. “He therefore is ineligible to be certified as a candidate for mayor in light of the clear charter language.”
The Warren City Council filed a lawsuit that challenged Fouts’ claims that he was eligible for a fifth term.
Fouts has remained relatively popular in Warren, despite controversy. In numerous audio recordings he allegedly compared Black people to “chimps” and used the N-Word, called older women “hateful dried-up cunts,” mocked people with disabilities, said he wanted to have sex with “an abused woman,” threatened to shoot his former chief of staff “through the fucking head,” called Rick Santorum’s daughter who has a disability a “mongoloid baby,” boasted about the ease of picking up teenage prostitutes in Amsterdam, and complained about Black people calling 911 too often.
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