What the question asks
Shall the Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter, Article One, Home Rule Powers - Definitions, be supplemented by adding a new section, “104. Amendments to Charter,” by prohibiting the use of the Home Rule Charter Amendment process to add duties or obligations beyond the lawful scope of the city’s authority?
Why the question is being posed
City Council put forward this ballot question after repeated efforts to ask another question of city voters: whether the city should terminate dealings with businesses that also have ties to Israel, or regimes accused of genocide or other human-rights violations.
Organizers of the “Not On Our Dime” effort, who have denounced Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza, carried out a petition-signing drive to put that question on the ballot twice in the past year. Both times, the effort failed due to deficiencies in the petitions themselves. But city officials worried that if the question had gone to the ballot and voters approved it, the city could be denied state and federal funding — because those governments bar working with entities that boycott Israel. Officials also said it could be impossible to conduct business with anyone because large companies have business dealings all over the world.
Council’s question is an attempt to pre-empt such efforts in the future. As City Councilor Erika Strassburger put it during a discussion of the matter this past winter, “If there’s even a remote possibility that something like this could become city law, then we have a responsibility to our constituents to prevent that from happening.”
What the question would do
If voters approve the question, the city’s Home Rule Charter will include a new provision that reads: “Nonbinding amendments, or amendments prescribing duties or obligations inconsistent or in conflict with the lawful powers or duties of the municipality are expressly prohibited.”
In plain English, that language means that future ballot questions cannot compel the city to do something it isn’t legally able to do. That raises an obvious question: If the city is already legally barred from doing something, why bother changing the Home Rule Charter to say voters can’t tell the city to do it?
Proponents say the language would make it easier to head off future “Not On Our Dime” initiatives going forward. Council’s language is inspired by a provision of Allegheny County’s administrative code, which asserts that non-binding referendum questions are “expressly prohibited.” That provision was cited in a state Supreme court ruling that rejected a ballot question that sought to roll back the county’s drink tax.
The theory is that including such a prohibition in the city charter would make it easier to sideline ballot questions that made political statements unrelated to city governance, perhaps before those questions are placed before voters. Drafters of future ballot questions would have to prove they were asking the city to do something within its power before voters could weigh in. Proponents say that would make it easier to avoid a divisive political debate that would, at most, result in a law being placed on the books that couldn’t actually be used.
As Jeremy Kazzaz, a local advocate for the Jewish community, explained it to council during a public hearing in February: “The act of sending certain questions to the ballot can cause irreparable harm to the electorate.”
Notably, Not On Our Dime has itself claimed not to oppose the measure, even though it was designed to thwart a repeat of its efforts. The group has always billed itself as a supporter of direct democracy, and it denies that its measure would place an impossible burden on the city — in part because the ban would apply only “where possible,” rather than in cases where any potential bidder or supplier to the city would have ties to Israel.
Ben Case, who has been a spokesman for the Not On Our Dime effort, told council this winter that “There is no major conflict between what you are proposing and what we are,” though he allowed that “it does raise some concerns.”
Among them are doubts that the measure could prevent the city or its citizens from taking a stand against the Trump administration, should it violate the civil or human rights of residents. The administration could, for example, directly confront the long-held posture of city leaders that Pittsburgh would not assist federal immigration officials in rounding up residents who are in the country illegally.
“My concern about this amendment is that it would hamstring, quite literally, our ability to enforce the [nondiscrimination] amendment … if the federal government codifies discrimination,” is how City Councilor Barb Warwick put it. “What’s going on is like nothing we’ve ever seen” from Washington, she said.
Again, it’s not clear that anything the city’s elected officials or voters put into the Home Rule Charter could have an impact on such questions. That would almost certainly be tested in court, as could the first application of this ballot question if voters passed it.
“When you do things for the first time, you can’t be sure” how they will play out, Shawn Carter, City Council’s legislative projects manager, told a gathering of the 14th Ward Independent Club. In any case, he said, while voters may decide to put certain questions out of reach on May 20, they could also someday hold a referendum to reverse that decision.
“We can’t prevent … future citizens from re-amending the charter,” he said.
