Baltimore has seen a surge in ballot questions backed by big money. Is the system broken?

In the last several election cycles, interest in Baltimore ballot questions has surged as citizens, often those with the most cash and sometimes living outside city limits, have realized the questions are a shortcut to enacting city laws.

Citizens who gather enough signatures can send questions directly to their fellow voters for consideration. The process leapfrogs the middle-man of the elected City Council, giving the average voter the chance to set the agenda.

But the outsized influence of money in the process, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single issue, has raised questions about whether the ballot measure remains a Democratic path to lawmaking.

“The big money kind of turns the intent of the process on its head,” said Courtney Jenkins, president of the Metropolitan Baltimore Council of the AFL-CIO who is involved in an opposition effort aimed at several ballot questions this cycle. “I don’t think that was ever the intent when the city charter was created for these … deep pocketed folks to come in and say ‘We’re going to legislate through the ballot measure.’”

Baltimore’s charter, enabled by state law, allows citizens to place a question on the ballot by gathering at least 10,000 signatures from qualified city voters. (Alternatively, the City Council can place items on the ballot for consideration with a majority vote and the approval of the mayor, a mechanism used more frequently.) And for their part, Baltimore voters have continued to approve ballot questions at an overwhelming clip. Of the hundreds posed to voters in the last 20 years, just one was defeated.

During the last two election cycles, those with deep pockets have been major players.

Renew Baltimore, a coalition of economists, real estate agents and former city officials, has led two well-funded campaigns in support of ballot questions. In 2022, the group spent more than $230,000 in an effort to get a measure to cut and cap the city’s property tax rate onto the ballot. That time, the effort fell just short of the required signatures. This year, $268,000 was spent as the group collected more than 23,000 signatures . People and groups with real estate interests have been among the biggest donors.

Also in 2022, a group known as the People for Elected Accountability and Civic Engagement (PEACE), circulated petitions for two ballot questions : one that would establish term limits and another that would implement recall elections. Both were funded largely by David Smith , executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group and co-owner of The Baltimore Sun. He provided $560,000 for the effort, according to campaign finance reports.

Petition circulators paid by PEACE gathered more than 10,000 signatures in favor of the term limit petition, which ultimately went on to be approved by voters that November. Recall elections came up short, failing to gather the necessary signatures.

This cycle, PEACE, again financed almost entirely by Smith, is taking another shot. In January, the group submitted more than 25,000 signatures in favor of a ballot question that would slash the size of the Baltimore City Council from 14 members to eight. This time, Smith, a county resident, paid $340,000 into the petition effort.

The council slashing question has been approved to appear on the ballot this fall, while the property tax cap proposal is due for a court hearing after being thrown out by the Baltimore City Board of Elections this month.

The infusion of cash into the process is cause for concern, said Emily Scarr, state director for Maryland Public Interest Research Group, a consumer protection and good government advocacy group. Maintaining citizen access to ballot initiatives is a critical tool for direct Democracy, Scarr said, but like other campaign activities, there should be restrictions on the funding.

Maryland caps donations from donors to political candidates at $6,000 per donor, but political committees formed to support ballot measures do not have the same restrictions. Much of Baltimore’s ballot question system is established by state law, and changes could require both state and local action.

“Having access to wealth shouldn’t give you a free pass to put anything you want on the ballot,” Scarr said.

That’s unsound legal ground, argued Donald Tobin, a professor and former dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Courts have found ballot initiatives are “not corrupting,” Tobin said. Unlike a candidate who can engage in quid pro quo — an illegal transaction of campaign donations for official actions — ballot questions don’t have that risk, he said.

“They cannot be restricted on funding because they’re seen as core free speech,” he said. “It’s not a candidate. It’s about an issue, and it’s advocating for an issue that you care about.”

Some states have moved to require ballot questions to pass by a supermajority, a defined percentage greater than 50%. Locally, some have advocated for the 10,000-signature requirement to be increased, although that risks alienating average citizens from the process.

Flawed or not, Baltimore’s ballot question system represents a check on legislative power, Tobin said.

“There’s some question about whether we want to make it harder or do we want to live with the consequences,” Tobin said.

Matthew Crenson, a retired Johns Hopkins University professor and Baltimore historian, said big campaign contributors appear to be gaming the ballot question system. Ballot questions are a “more specific political instrument” than donating to candidates who have higher rates of failure and may not behave as funders hope, he said.

In highly Democratic Baltimore, it can also be difficult to find a candidate willing to be the bearer of particular political causes, Crenson said. Ballot questions are a work-around.

“It’s easier to support media and referenda instead of trying to get what you want through a candidate,” he said.

Still, Crenson said, that doesn’t make the system undemocratic. There are still checks and balances.

“The fact that the voters have to pass it, I think, makes it more Democratic than if (a donor) were to spend money making contributions to candidates,” he said.

Joshua Harris, vice president of the Baltimore NAACP, said the big money backing ballot questions risks alienating the city’s most vulnerable along race and class lines. There’s no magic pill to eliminate the money, he said. Changes to the process also risk thwarting people’s rights.

Harris believes the safest route is better public education campaigns about the questions proposed. Harris is working with more than a half-dozen organizations backing an effort to fight both the council-cutting measure as well as the proposed tax cut ballot question. The coalition, which announced its effort via a news conference last month , said it will mount a social media campaign and recruit canvassers to work polls in the fall.

That effort will also cost money, although organizers have yet to provide an estimate or outline the full scope of their outreach plans. The group has not formed a campaign committee with the Maryland State Board of Elections.

Fighting money with money on ballot questions happens more often outside Maryland, Scarr said. It is itself a dangerous game out of reach for average residents.

“In California, that’s sort of become an arms race of money. Good money, bad money,” she said of the state’s frequent referenda. “I don’t think that’s the way to solve these issues.”

This cycle, the outcomes for some questions may be decided in a courtroom. At least two questions are now the subject of legal action. Renew Baltimore filed a challenge to the Baltimore City Board of Elections’ decision to throw out its ballot question, while the city is challenging a ballot question known as the Baby Bonus that would mandate $1,000 payments to new parents in the city. Baby Bonus, backed by the Maryland Child Alliance, made its push via a grassroots volunteer effort. Records show organizers spent just $3,553.

Crenson said city officials should be nervous that the legal machinations may inspire citizen action to change the ballot question process itself. The publicized fight might motivate someone to modify the city’s charter to allow some of the ballot questions under scrutiny to pass.

“They’re playing with fire,” he said.