Institutions matter when considering government performance. An extensive body of research exists that explores the structure of municipal government from the perspective of accurately categorizing form and speculating that the two primary forms, council-manager and mayor-council, have become less distinct (Frederickson, Johnson, and Wood 2004; Carr and Karruppusamy 2008; DeSantis and Renner 2002; Nelson and Svara 2010). A still unanswered question is why some municipalities adopt the council-manager form while others abandon it. Each year, there are efforts in some U.S. municipalities to modify their form of government from council-manager to mayor-council or the reverse. Studies of these adoption/abandonment efforts have only focused on the largest municipalities. Knoke (1982) examined changes in the 267 largest cities between 1900-1942. Similarly, Choi, Feiock, and Bae (2014) used data for the 191 largest U.S. cities in 1930 and traced adoption and abandonments of form up through 2005. Protasel (1988) was the first to suggest a new institutionalist perspective on form of government choice. He used ICMA Form of Government survey data from 1981 and 1986. This research seeks to expand on this research and test the conclusions from previous research by tracing efforts to change government form between 1980 and 2018 for all municipalities with populations of 30,000 or above as of the 2000 Census. In addition to taking a more comprehensive look at cities that experienced change efforts, this study examines both the timing and outcome of referenda that proposed a change in form to determine whether patterns exist that can predict success or failure.