“Both ballot questions #1 and #3 appear as a response to the Pittsburgh-based Not on Our Dime divestment campaign.”

In the May 2025 primary, Pittsburgh voters will see three questions on their primary election ballot. All three appear after Pittsburgh City Council passed ordinances proposing amendments to the city’s Home Rule Charter earlier this year. Two potential amendments respond to recent divestment referendums, while a third would prevent privatizing the city’s water and sewer systems. Pittsburgh City Paper is providing an explainer to give background and help sift through the legal language.

Pittsburgh City Ballot Question #1: Non-Discrimination in City Business

Shall the Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter, Article One, Home Rule Powers – Definitions, be supplemented by adding a new Section, “105. Local Governance”, by prohibiting the discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or expression, disability, place of birth, national origin or association or affiliation with any nation or foreign state in conducting business of the City?

Both ballot questions #1 and #3 appear as a response to the Pittsburgh-based Not on Our Dime divestment campaign. The group’s petition-signing drive tried twice to introduce its own ballot referendum question, which would have required the city to divert public money away from countries engaged in genocide or apartheid, specifying Israel, through an amendment to Pittsburgh’s Home Rule Charter. The most recent effort in February was met with legal challenges by both the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, which questioned the validity of the campaign’s signatures; and by City Controller Rachael Heisler, who alleged that the amendment, if passed, “would significantly disrupt City operations due to the City’s dependence on the global economy.”

Before Not on Our Dime ended its most recent campaign, ultimately stipulating a deficiency in the signatures it collected, Pittsburgh City Council passed a bill containing its own ballot referendum question and echoing Heisler’s claims.

“The nature of a modern, globally integrated economy dictates that the City engages in business transactions with multinational entities,” the bill read. District 8 City Councilor Erika Strassburger, who introduced the bill, explicitly stated they hoped to put “guardrails” in place to prevent future divestment referendums.

Though anti-discrimination prohibitions already exist under federal, state, and some local laws, if passed, the ballot referendum would add them to local governance under Pittsburgh’s Home Rule Charter. It would expand their purview to include entities that do business with the city and inscribe “association or affiliation with any nation or foreign state” as a new protected category (alongside religious, gender, and anti-LGBT discrimination) — effectively barring the city from turning away a business because of its dealings with other countries.

Not on Our Dime, which has maintained its support of direct democracy, did not oppose the ballot measure this winter, stating its campaign and the Council’s referendums “don’t conflict with one another.” If passed, it’s unclear if the Home Rule Charter amendments would block future city divestment efforts outright, but they would provide another basis to legally challenge them.

Pittsburgh City Ballot Question #2: Ownership of the City’s Water and Sewer Systems

Shall the Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter be amended and supplemented by adding a new Article 11: RIGHT TO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF POTABLE WATER SYSTEMS, WASTEWATER SYSTEM, AND STORM SEWER SYSTEMS, which restricts the lease and/or sale of the City’s water and sewer system to private entities?”

Ballot question #2 would prevent the city’s public water and sewer systems from ever being leased or sold to a private entity.

Since 1995, the City of Pittsburgh has managed its water and sewer systems through Pittsburgh Water (PGH20), previously known as Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA). The utility was formed under a 30-year “rent-to-own” lease agreement that will allow PGH20 to purchase it from the City for $1 in the fall of 2025. Under the 1995 contract, PGH20 would remain a public utility, but could sell its infrastructure to a private company. The utility recently stressed it has no current or future plans to sell its systems.

However, Pittsburgh City Council introduced a measure to preempt any sale of Pittsburgh Water and ensure it remains publicly owned. In the past, both privatization and the prospect of a permanent public-private partnership of PGH20 have been raised. Critics of privatization point to the city drinking water’s lead crisis that occurred while PWSA was managed by Veolia Water North America, a private water-utility management company, and the prospect of raised utility rates, worse service, and insufficient investment in climate change mitigation as other drawbacks.

The ballot measure was passed unanimously by Pittsburgh City Council and signed by Mayor Ed Gainey. According to the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh, the board of Pittsburgh Water has also expressed support for the amendment.

Pittsburgh City Ballot Question #3: Lawful Scope of the Home Rule Charter Amendment process

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?

Similar to ballot question #1, this amendment was introduced by Pittsburgh City Council to ensure the city’s referendum process is not used to pass measures the city can’t legally enforce.

Councilors introduced the measure as response to the Not on Our Dime divestment campaign, whose proposed amendment Council claimed used Pittsburgh’s Home Rule Charter to compel the city to operate outside the scope of its legal authority. (In Controller Heisler’s legal challenges to Not on Our Dime, she alleged the group’s referendum violated statewide anti-BDS law.)

As with question #1, federal, state, and local laws already exist that would prevent the city from carrying out actions it isn’t legally able to carry out. So why add a separate amendment to codify this and reiterate it to Pittsburgh voters? Proponents representing pro-Israel groups claim the measure “send[s] a message” and pushes back against “ideological extremism.” In theory, the amendment could also compel future referendum campaigns to prove they were asking the city to do something within its legal scope before a ballot question appeared to voters.

Not on Our Dime, while not explicitly opposed to the amendment, said earlier this year that it raises the bar for direct democracy, and could stymie future local, citizen-driven efforts to resist federal law like the recent wave of deportations carried out under the Trump administration. The amendment could also be reversed by another ballot referendum, but would serve as another stopgap for efforts like divestment in the meantime.