2025 Ballot Questions for May 20, 2025 - Primary Election

Special Election Question #1 would add language to the Home Rule Charter that prohibits the city from discriminating on the basis of "association or affiliation with any nation or foreign state" when doing business.   The measure passed by City Council lists some of the reasons behind the proposed amendment, including:

• the need to engage with multinational companies in the modern global economy
• the practical difficulty of investigating the activities of all foreign nations who do business with a vendor
  
  

City Council passed the measure placing this question on the ballot unaniminously.

Pittsburgh City Council added this question to the ballot in response to  a citizens' initiative to place a separate question on the ballot. Read background on the citizen's initiative.

The City of Pittsburgh currently owns and operates the drinking water, sewer, and stormwater utilities that serve Pittsburgh residents.  The city's Home Rule Charter, as written, allows the sale of these utilities to a private company or individual.   The proposed amendment would add language to the Home Rule Charter prohibiting the sale of these utilities to a private company or individual. 

Read the full text here:   City Ballot Question 2

• Pittsburgh Water (PW), formerly the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), is a public utility that provides drinking water, and waste and stormwater management for the City of Pittsburgh.  When the utility was formed in 1995, PWSA agreed to rent the water management infrastructure from the City of Pittsburgh in a kind of "rent to own" arrangement. The 1995 contract allows PW to purchase the infrastructure from the city for $1 in the fall of 2025. Although PW remains a public utility, it would then be legal for PW to sell the infrastructure to a private company.

• In 2016, Pennsylvania passed a law changing the way the value or sale price of a public utility is determined.  This law made it easier for private companies to purchase utilities and has led to an increased number of sales of water utilities in Pennsylvania to private companies.

• PW is currently committed to remaining a public utility, and there is no company trying to buy Pittsburgh's water and sewer utilities at this time.  This amendment, if passed, would prevent a private company from buying these utilities in the future.

• The measure to put this question on the ballot was passed unanimously by the Pittsburgh City Council and signed by the Mayor.  The board of Pittsburgh Water has also stated support for the amendment.

The  Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter allows citizen initiatives to place proposed amendments on the ballot.  Special Election Question 3 proposes adding language to the Home Rule Charter prohibiting citizens' initiatives that add functions or obligations to the Charter that conflict with the US or PA Constitutions.

The measure passed by City Council lists some reasons behind the proposed amendment including:

• The City of Pittsburgh is bound by the PA and US Constitutions in which duties are assigned to different levels of government.
• An amendment that conflicts with the constitutions and the authority granted to the city would set up costly legal challenges.

This is another measure passed in response to a proposed citizen's initiative. Read background on the citizen's initiative.

While the other two ballot measures received a unanimous vote in City Council, two council members opposed this measure because it restricts citizens' rights to use the ballot initiative process to place a question on the ballot.  The burden of deciding the legality of the proposed ballot measure could be shifted to the citizens in the process of forming the initiative.