Voters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and five Vermont towns will decide on ballot measures related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the coming months.
On May 20, Pittsburgh voters will decide on two charter amendments passed by the city council in response to a proposed citizen initiative that may also appear on the ballot.
The potential citizen initiative, currently circulating for signatures, would establish an investment policy that diverts funds from governments and entities engaged in genocide, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid. In the text, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid are defined as follows:
- Genocide is defined as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, including killing members, causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating conditions leading to the group’s destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births, or forcibly transferring children to another group.
- Ethnic cleansing is defined as the “systematic elimination of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group from a region or society, as by deportation, forced emigration, or genocide.”
- Apartheid is defined as “a regime of systematic segregation, oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
To qualify for the ballot, proponents of the initiative, Not On Our Dime Pittsburgh, must submit 12,500 valid signatures.
Not on Our Dime states on its website, “Overwhelmingly, Americans want an arms embargo on Israel. It’s against Federal law to provide weapons to countries violating human rights. Pittsburgh’s Pension Fund even has an investment policy that says it should reduce arms production and promote human dignity. When we can’t trust our elected leaders to follow their own guidelines, we will put it to a vote.”
The proposed initiative would prohibit the use of public funds to purchase goods and services from any company that does business with governments actively engaging in or facilitating genocide, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid, and would also divert spending and contracts away from those governments.
The measure would also establish an investment policy excluding enterprises involved in arms production, as well as those that conduct business with governments or entities that restrict humanitarian aid to civilians, target infrastructure essential to sustaining human life, deny access to medical care based on ethnicity, race, religion, disability, gender, or sexual orientation, or use prison labor for commercial benefit.
Supporters of the initiative include the Democratic Socialists of America Pittsburgh, the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh BDS Coalition, and Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) Pittsburgh.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh opposes the potential initiative. Pittsburgh Councilmember Erika Strassburger (D), who also opposes the initiative, said, “We can’t subject our residents to the threat of service disruptions because we can’t contract with a mainstream corporation that happens to operate in a country that some don’t like.”
Strassburger introduced two ballot measures that will appear on the ballot, which would conflict with the potential initiative if it qualifies for the ballot.
The ballot measures would amend the Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter. The first measure would prohibit “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.” The other measure would prohibit the use of the home rule charter amendment process to “add duties or obligations beyond lawful scope of the city’s authority.” Both of these measures are supported by the Beacon Coalition and StandWithUs Mid-Atlantic.
Councilmember Strassburger said, “[The measures are in] direct response to what I see as a threat to our ability as public servants to be able to fulfill the tasks that the public expects of us.” She further said, “The intention of this bill was to draw attention to the fact that we believe that the proposal being put forth … would inadvertently force the city to discriminate in a way that we don’t believe that it should. I do respect the desire to keep taxpayer money from supporting human rights abuses. I believe that these proposals that we’ve seen from the Not On Our Dime are fraught with what I consider ill-defined standards and unreasonably sweeping reaches.”
In response, Not On Our Dime said the measures by the city council and their citizen initiative do not conflict with one another, saying, “We are happy to see that the City Council is interested in implementing stronger anti-discrimination policy. We too are opposed to discrimination, not only in our city but across the world. We are trying to keep our tax dollars from funding countries that take discrimination to extremes like apartheid and ethnic cleansing. We are glad to see the City Council giving voters more opportunities to participate in policymaking, and we look forward to voters getting to decide on Council’s referred referendums as well as our citizen-led referendum this May.”
On March 4, five Vermont localities—Brattleboro, Montpelier, Newfane, Vergennes, and Winooski—will also decide on questions advising the mayor and city council to adopt pledges regarding Palestine and Israel. The pledges read, “WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people; and WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and WE DECLARE ourselves an apartheid-free community, and to that end, WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.” The advisory questions are nonbinding.
Previously, voters in one locality in 2024—Urbana, Illinois—approved a question that advised local officials to stop providing military funding for Israel. As of 2025, 38 states had passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts against Israel.
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