Mayor Told Media He Wouldn’t Use His PAC to Finance His Own Re-Election; Records Show He Did Just That

by Laerte Lambert

Mayor Christopher Taylor’s Ann Arbor for Everyone PAC reported $30,750 in contributions during the first seven months of 2026. All of the contributions came from three individuals. Duo Security co-founder Jonathan Oberheide, supplied $25,000, representing 81.3 percent of the PAC’s receipts. 

Fifteen days after Oberheide’s contribution, the PAC gave $19,750 to Christopher Taylor for Mayor. That June 18 payment brought the PAC’s cumulative election-cycle contributions to Taylor’s campaign to $24,500, the maximum allowed under Michigan law for an independent committee and exactly ten times the $2,450 limit for an individual donor. 

The PAC’s $24,500 in contributions made up 13.9 percent of the $176,293 in election-cycle receipts reported by Taylor’s campaign through July 19. 

Taylor created Ann Arbor for Everyone in 2023. Its original Statement of Organization, filed in March of that year, classified it as an “Independent Committee” and gave its full name as “Ann Arbor for Everyone PAC (affiliated with Christopher Taylor for Mayor).” 

When Taylor discussed the new PAC with the Ann Arbor Observer in December 2023, he said he did not expect to use it to finance his own reelection. 

“If I were to run for reelection, I would expect to fundraise through my ordinary mayoral campaign committee,” Taylor said. 

Taylor told the Observer the PAC existed “so that I could do my part to help progressive candidates.” WEMU reported that Taylor launched the PAC to support local progressive campaigns and policies and to communicate with residents about housing, transportation and environmental issues. 

The PAC has now given Taylor’s campaign the largest contribution Michigan law permits it to make. 

Three Donors during an Election Year 

Ann Arbor for Everyone’s 2026 pre-primary filing lists only three contributors between Jan. 1 and July 19: 

• Jonathan Oberheide: $25,000. 
• Gay Rosenwald: $5,500 in six contributions. 
• Daniel C. Cramer: $250. 

Oberheide co-founded Ann Arbor-based Duo Security, where he served as chief technology officer. Cisco acquired Duo in 2018 in a deal valued at $2.35 billion. 

The PAC began 2026 with $645. Without Oberheide’s $25,000 contribution on June 3, it would not have had enough cash to make the $19,750 payment transferred to Taylor’s campaign on June 18. 

On that same day, Ann Arbor for Everyone made four candidate contributions: 

• Christopher Taylor for Mayor: $19,750. 
• Jennifer Cornell for Ann Arbor City Council: $2,450. 
• Committee to Elect Cynthia Harrison: $1,225. 
• Sandy Aldrich for City Council: $1,225. 

Taylor’s campaign received 80 percent of the $24,650 the PAC distributed to candidates that day. The three City Council candidates divided the remaining $4,900. 

The Taylor campaign’s filing reports the June payment and shows that Ann Arbor for Everyone had already given the campaign $4,750 during the election cycle. The latest transfer brought the PAC’s cumulative total to exactly $24,500. 

Independent PACs Can Contribute Ten Times the Individual Limit 

Under the Michigan Department of State’s 2023-2026 contribution limits, an individual or ordinary political committee may give no more than $2,450 to an Ann Arbor mayoral candidate during an election cycle. A qualifying independent committee may give up to $24,500. 

In Michigan campaign-finance law, an “independent committee” is not the same as an “independent expenditure committee,” commonly called a Super PAC. A Super PAC may not give money directly to a candidate committee. An independent committee may. 

To qualify for the higher limit, an independent committee must register at least six months before the relevant election. It also must receive contributions from at least 25 people and support or oppose at least three Michigan candidates in the same calendar year while staying within the lower limits that apply to an ordinary political committee, according to state campaign-finance guidance. 

Ann Arbor for Everyone’s 2023 quarterly report and annual report show that the PAC received contributions from 31 distinct individuals. It also gave $1,000 donations to the campaigns of Jen Eyer, Erica Briggs and Lisa Disch. Those reports show the donor breadth and multi-candidate activity the State lists among the qualifications for the higher limit, having it poised to make a $24,500 contribution to a specific individual during the next election. In 2026, when the PAC used that recently acquired ten-times limit for Taylor, its entire reported revenue came from three donors, a stark contrast with the 25 donors from 2023 yearly report, despite this year being a re-election year for Taylor. 

Blurry Lines Between Independent PAC and Taylor Campaign 

There are regulations for how PACs can be managed. Michigan’s official committee-manual appendices say an officeholder who establishes a Leadership PAC “must maintain separation” between it and the candidate committee. The manual further says the Leadership PAC cannot be established to replace or perform the candidate committee’s functions, or to subvert MCFA requirements, prohibitions or contribution limits. This line can be blurred through personnel overlap. Both the Taylor Campaign and the Ann Arbor for Everyone PAC committees share the same financial officer, which is legally permitted. Ann Arbor for Everyone’s 2026 filing identifies Joan Lowenstein as treasurer and lists 502 Burson Place as both her address and the PAC’s address. Taylor’s campaign filing identifies Lowenstein as its treasurer and lists the same address and telephone number. Sharing a treasurer is not a campaign-finance violation. Nor does Michigan’s use of the term “independent committee” mean the PAC must be independent of Taylor in the ordinary sense of the word. The PAC’s own registration expressly identifies Christopher Taylor for Mayor as an affiliate. The shared treasurer highlights how the finances of Taylor’s PAC and Taylor’s candidate committee are overseen by the same person at the same address where there is a clear awareness between the financial stream and needs of the separate committees at all times.  

Michigan guidance says a PAC may not keep an earmarked contribution. The public filings do not identify Oberheide’s contribution as earmarked for Taylor, and there is no evidence that Oberheide explicitly directed the PAC to give money to Taylor’s campaign. In a 2020 interpretive statement, the Michigan Department of State said that whether a disbursement has been unlawfully earmarked through a PAC must be assessed case by case. Relevant factors can include the time between transactions, whether the PAC could have made the payment without the contribution at issue, the committees’ accounting methods, whether they share a treasurer, and whether their funds were commingled. 

The filings illustrate how Michigan’s independent-committee rules can allow money raised from a small donor base to reach a candidate in an amount far above the individual contribution limit, and the prior preparation needed by the PAC to obtain independent status.