90.5 WESA | By Chris Potter
PublishedApril 21, 2025 at 1:10 PM EDT
What the question asks
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?
Why the question is being posed
As with ballot question #3, City Council drafted this question in response to repeated efforts to put a different question before city voters: whether the city should terminate dealings with businesses that also have ties to Israel. Organizers of the “Not On Our Dime” effort sought to essentially boycott such firms, prompting objections for reasons both philosophical (critics said the move was antisemitic) and practical (in a global economy, critics argued, finding suppliers or vendors that have no ties to Israel or any country would be all but impossible).
The bill’s language makes its motives clear: “The nature of a modern, globally integrated economy dictates that the City engages in business transactions with multinational entities,” it asserts. Its sponsor, too, has been open about why she took the step.
“This proposed referendum can stand on its own,” said City Councilor Erika Strassburger in a January discussion of the question. But she said it “was introduced as a response to a proposed referendum that is being proposed by community members.”
As it turns out, the measure will stand on its own: The Not On Our Dime effort failed for the second time in the past year due to deficient petitions. But the ballot question before voters on May 20 will provide an additional basis for objecting to future efforts: It treats them as another form of discrimination, such as discrimination on the basis of a person’s race, sex, or disability.
What the question would do
If voters approve the ballot question, a new provision of the Home Rule charter will be added to read, “The City of Pittsburgh will not refuse to do business with, or otherwise discriminate against, any person or entity based on race, religion, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or expression, disability, place of birth, national origin, real or perceived, or connection, association or affiliation with any nation or foreign state.”
Some of that language merely reasserts prohibitions on forms of discrimination that are already barred by federal, state, or local law — sometimes by all three. But the most notable part of the provision stems from the emphasis given to business relationships — and from the addition of new categories of discrimination that the question would make unlawful. The measure specifically bars discrimination on the basis of a “connection, association or affiliation with any nation or foreign state” —effectively preventing the city from shunning a business because of its ties to other countries.
(The new language would not apply to cases in which state or federal law imposes sanctions on foreign nations or companies that do business with them: For example, the city would still be obliged not to do business with a company tied to North Korea.)
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Strassburger originally proposed the charter change as a defensive maneuver: If the Not On Our Dime measure and her proposal both passed, she told WESA, a judge would have to weigh whether the measures were mutually exclusive, and if so, which would survive.
Not on Our Dime has not opposed council’s proposed change.
Some supporters of the group have questioned the implications of providing legal protections to a new and broadly defined group — those with a hazily described “connection” to another country. Others — including a member of the group who addressed council in February — have said that while they oppose discrimination, the “main intent” of council’s measure is “not to prevent discrimination against marginalized people but to shut down our attempts at direct democracy.”
Back when the group still hoped to get its own question on the ballot, however, its members said they oppose discrimination, too, and don’t see a conflict between the two measures.
That’s not how Strassburger saw it.
“The two initiatives present a direct and irreconcilable conflict with each other,” she said after a public hearing where Not On Our Dime members argued both changes to the home rule charter could exist side by side.
A court battle was likely even if Not On Our Dime’s ballot measure passed on its own: Challenges to the substance of their question were already filed in court, though they were rendered moot by flaws in the group’s petitions. Strassburger’s ballot question would give the city some additional firepower for the courtroom fight — if and when it ever happens.
