An effort that would allow Pittsburgh voters to limit the city's ability to contract with firms that have ties to Israel has been withdrawn.
It is the second time in the past year that such a ballot question initiative has failed due to deficiencies with signatures on the petitions filed to place the question on the ballot.
"I firmly believe that this is not the forum to determine complex matters of international law," said City Controller Rachael Heisler, who joined Jewish community leaders in challenging the ballot question's legality, in a news conference Friday morning. At a time when the city faces increasing financial constraints, she added, "It's expensive, it's a distraction."
"We as a Jewish community will always fight back against things that demonize the state of Israel," said Jeff Finkelstein, who leads the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, which also contested the ballot in court.
Chuck Pascal, an attorney for Not On Our Dime, organizers of the effort, acknowledged that the petitions had less than the roughly 12,500 valid signatures needed.
"We're not going to prolong the process," Pascal told Allegheny County Common Please Judge John T. McVay Jr.
If approved by voters, the measure would have amended the city charter to prevent the city from contracting with companies that did business in countries that engaged in practices such as genocide or apartheid. It identified Israel as one such country.
Lawyers for the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh and Heisler challenged the legitimacy of the ballot question itself, as well as the petitions filed to put the question on the ballot for the May 20 primary elections.
The same legal battle played out over a ballot-question effort last fall. This time, Not on Our Dime collected over 21,000 signatures — nearly twice as many signatures as required. But the group called off its effort last night. Attorneys for the Jewish Federation said that as the two sides began working through the challenges, organizers of the measure acknowledged that more than 90% of the challenged signatures under discussion were not valid.
Heisler and the Federation had a series of broader challenges to the legality of the ballot question itself, but that legal debate was preempted by the measure's withdrawal due to the petition problems.
The only controversy in the 20-minute hearing was about whether the petition could be withdrawn by Not On Our Dime on its own, or whether the withdrawal would be handled by a stipulation signed by McVay.
Attorney Ron Hicks, representing the Federation, said he preferred the latter approach because it would allow his clients to seek reimbursement for court costs.
"This is the second time this group has done this," Hicks said, referring to the similarly abortive petition effort last fall. "This is the second time my client has had to spend a lot of time and resources."
McVay did sign the stipulation, though he said petition organizers had acted "in good faith."
It is not clear whether organizers of the petition effort will try again: The group did not respond to requests for comment Friday morning. But it did publish a statement on social media maintaining that "We collected more than the required number of signatures from registered Pittsburgh voters, but due to court challenges and legal technicalities many of them cannot be counted.
Those technicalities, a separate statement read, involved a requirement that people signing petitions write down the address of where they are registered to vote, even if they now live somewhere else in the jurisdiction. A state law making that obligation explicit was passed in 2019 and upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court two years later.
Still, the statement said, "Not on Our Dime organizers were encouraged by the outpouring of community support for the referendum, and vowed to continue the fight for popular democracy in Pittsburgh."
"We know that this will come as a big blow to so many people who poured their hearts and effort into this referendum making the ballot," the group said on its social media page. "We're up against a system that is designed to make this practically impossible, especially with such legal challenges."
Heisler noted that City Council has proposed its own ballot question which, if approved by voters, could compel city lawyers to proactively challenge similar questions when they arise. As it was, she was the only city official to take legal action.
Mayor Ed Gainey expressed concern about the ballot question's fiscal impact and said he was "personally concerned" about the Jewish community's alarm over it. But he did not join the legal fight.
Heisler said it was "regretful that others didn't file an objection given how concerning this referendum is to me and to our office and to the stakeholders that we've interacted with."
