Ballot question financed by Sinclair Broadcast Group chair slashing council size garners 25K+ signatures

Organizers behind a petition for a ballot question that would ask Baltimore voters to cut the size of the City Council in half has submitted more than 25,000 signatures to the city Board of Elections, well ahead of a summer deadline and well above the requirement.

The petition, which would cut the number of council members from 14 to eight, was circulated by People for Elected Accountability & Civic Engagement, a group funded almost exclusively by David Smith, executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Smith’s Hunt Valley-based television broadcasting company operates 185 television stations in 86 markets, including WBFF-TV, known as Fox 45, in Baltimore.

Last week, Smith purchased The Baltimore Sun.

The council ballot question was one of two that the People for Elected Accountability & Civic Engagement, or PEACE, had permission from the Board of Elections to circulate. The other would have asked voters to establish recall elections to remove elected officials from office. It, however, has not been circulated as originally planned, said Mitchell Schmale, a spokesman for Smith and PEACE.

Organizers instead focused on the effort to reduce the size of the council, he said. The 25,000 signatures far exceed the 10,000 signature requirement to place a question on the ballot. Successful petition circulators typically aim to exceed the requirement by at least 5,000, knowing some signatures will be disqualified by a review by the Board of Elections.

PEACE, which received $340,000 from Smith in 2023 and $560,000 in 2022, backed the only successful ballot question petition last election cycle. That question, commonly known as Question K, established term limits for Baltimore’s mayor, council members and comptroller. It passed overwhelmingly and subsequently became law.

During a meeting with Sun staff Tuesday, Smith talked of financing the effort to put term limits on the ballot and said it was a “test.”

“If that isn’t an indictment of what people think of government, not just Baltimore City, but in Baltimore County, everywhere,” he said. “If I did that poll or charter amendment in every city in the country it would be the same thing.”

Smith declined to comment Wednesday via Schmale.

A petition for recall elections, circulated by the Smith-backed group in 2022, narrowly missed being placed on the ballot. Organizers submitted 11,025 signatures at the time, however more than 1,000 were thrown out.

Fox 45 aired multiple reports at that time around the idea of recalling Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott, who started his four-year term in December 2020. Baltimore’s charter has no mechanism for the public to recall officeholders and does not limit the number of terms elected leaders can serve.

Campaign finance reports, released Wednesday, showed Smith contributed $100,000 to a super PAC backing Scott’s opponent former Mayor Sheila Dixon.

Baltimore has seen increased petitioning activity in recent years as it has become apparent that the process is the fastest track for citizens — in some cases the most wealthy or well funded — to pass laws. Over the past two decades, more than 100 questions have been put to voters and only one has failed.

Petitions are not due until this summer, but five other potential ballot questions have also been approved to solicit signatures, including several familiar to Baltimore residents.

A group that calls itself Renew Baltimore has restarted an effort to get a question on the ballot that would require the city to step down the property tax rate. Backed by a coalition of economists and former city officials, the group has argued previously that a reduction in tax revenue would pay for itself by attracting more homeowners and developers to the city.

Renew Baltimore collected signatures on the same issue in 2022, but came up short of the 10,000-signature requirement.

Economist Anirban Basu told the Sun last month that the group is making “enormous progress” collecting signatures. In 2022, the group did not start collecting signatures until April or May of that year, he said.

The group is also well-financed. Renew Baltimore raised $240,802 in 2023, campaign finance reports show, including $25,000 from CFG Community Bank, $25,000 from Terra Nova Ventures and $23,000 from the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors PAC. Former mayoral candidate Mary Miller gave $10,000 to the cause.

“We started on time. We’re well financed, very well organized,” Basu said. “We’re going to get this done.”

The Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition is also renewing an effort to petition for the creation of a fund to advocate for a regional transit authority. The group campaigned for the fund in 2022, but came up short of the signature requirement.

Board of Elections officials said they have received signatures from the Maryland Child Alliance, which is petitioning to establish a fund called the Baby Bonus. The fund would pay parents of newborn children $1,000 upon their arrival. On its paperwork filed with the Board of Elections, the group cited research that found one-time payments can lead to enhanced brain development, lower crime rates and better educational outcomes.

Also approved to collect signatures was a proposed ballot question that would establish a Community Wealth Building Fund. The proposal, which was submitted by local SEIU United Healthcare Workers, would create a fund to be used for projects to expand “community ownership” such as community-owned land trusts, investment funds, financial institutions and utilities, according to documents submitted to the Board of Elections.

Councilman Ryan Dorsey also received approval to circulate a ballot question that would change the composition of the City Council, however Dorsey said this week he is no longer collecting signatures. Dorsey’s proposal calls for increasing the number of council members elected on a district basis from 14 to 15. Currently, the council has 15 members including the council president, but the council president does not represent a district and is instead elected citywide.

Under Dorsey’s plan, the council would select the council president from its own members every two years. In the event that there was a vacancy in the mayoral office, the council would elect by majority vote an interim mayor to serve the rest of the unexpired term. Currently, the council president becomes the mayor in the event of a mayoral vacancy.

Dorsey said Wednesday he collected about 100 signatures for the effort but does not have the capacity to collect more. He compared his proposal to the one circulated by PEACE to slash the council, calling his an “actual thoughtful approach.”

“It has no logic behind it,” Dorsey said of the Smith-financed proposal. “It completely fails to address the real problem being that we should not be electing an at-large City Council president.”

“Baltimore is unusual in a lot of ways,” he added. “The makeup of our legislative body should not be one of those things.”