Question H: Inside the campaign to save City Council districts

If history is any indicator, the fate of six members of the Baltimore City Council may well be set in stone.

Voters filling out their ballots this year are being asked whether they should reduce the City Council from 14 districts to eight, eliminating nearly half of the jobs on the legislative panel. Baltimore voters tend to pass ballot questions almost automatically: Only one in the last 25 years has failed.

But in the final weeks before Election Day, City Council members, progressive groups and labor organizations are ramping up a campaign aimed at convincing people to vote against Question H. They are showing up in yards posters throughout the city. Opponents knocking on doors and attending community meetings dutifully inform residents that the measure is funded by David Smith, the Baltimore County-based media mogul who presides over Sinclair, Inc. and earlier this year it bought The Baltimore Sun. In recent weeks, a well-funded counteroffensive backed by Mayor Brandon Scott (the pointedly named Stop Sinclair) has bombarded tens of thousands of residents with text messages and radio ads.

But could this last-minute push prove too little, too late?

The effort to block Question H is the strongest opposition campaign on a ballot measure in living memory, said Andy Ellis, a member of the city’s Charter Review Commission who heads one of numerous coalitions dedicated to stopping the proposal. . Smith similarly financed a referendum two years ago to establish term limits on City Council. The measure was approved, but won the least support for any question on the ballot.

If Question H passes, it will be by a narrow margin, Ellis predicted. That result could mean some pangs of regret for the opposition. About 60,000 City residents received mail-in ballots late last month, and if there is any missed opportunity, Ellis said it will be that the opposition didn’t ramp up its messaging campaign in time to reach all of those voters.

“I feel comfortable. “I don’t feel safe,” he said. “I think there’s a good chance that on Nov. 6 we’ll look back and say, ‘Hey, we could have beaten this.'”

Whether Question H is approved or rejected has big implications for the future of politics in Baltimore.

Success could usher in a new era of power in the city, in which Wealthy donors like Smith and grassroots coalitions alike bypass City Hall to make sweeping reforms by vote. If the question fails, it could demonstrate the power of public messaging to turn the tide against referendums.

Opponents insist that nearly everyone in Baltimore who has heard of Question H plans to vote against it, a claim supported by coalition polls. According to Stop Sinclair campaign correspondence reviewed by The Baltimore Banner, an overwhelming 57% of respondents to a campaign poll planned to vote against Question H, while only 6% said they planned to vote for it. . Although that survey was based on a small sample taken months ago, It found that another 26% of respondents were undecided and 11% needed more information.

But many have still not heard the opposition’s message.

Volunteers knocking on doors on a recent Sunday in the leafy, expensive Homeland neighborhood had more luck than usual getting people to show up. But as of Oct. 20, the group, organized by Councilman Zeke Cohen, had knocked on just over 1,600 doors since the beginning of the month, speaking face-to-face with fewer than 600 people. Although nearly everyone pollsters met with says they intend to vote against Question H, they represent less than 0.2% of Baltimore’s registered voters.

Councilman Mark Conway, who joined Homeland canvassers, explained to voters that a smaller City Hall would make it much less accessible. If city hall is reduced by half, he argued, city services will be affected.

For For at least some residents, the arguments in favor of maintaining the 15-member status quo may be nuanced. A woman walking her dog wondered if reducing the size of the council would make sense considering Baltimore’s decades of population decline? Another assumed Conway was there to talk about a different, high-profile ballot measure.

“Is this the one at the port?” asked a woman who opened the door for Conway. The Homeland resident briefly listened to the councilman’s argument against shrinking the City Council, but soon turned the conversation to Question F, the referendum that would usher in the nearly $1 billion downtown waterfront redevelopment proposal.

So far, Smith has invested $415,000 in the group pushing Question H, People for Elected Accountability and Civic Engagement. But the Sinclair executive has not invested new money in the effort since February, and PEACE reported this week that it has barely $200 in the bank heading into the final stretch before the election.

Most of PEACE’s spending was done almost a year ago, including paying pollsters to get signatures for the petition qualifying their measure for the ballot. The Baltimore Flag has interviewed dozens of those signatories and found that many do not remember supporting the ballot question, or now say they disagree with its intent.

Still, some residents expressed frustration with City Hall and urged change.

“Reduce it. Keep it to a minimum,” said East Baltimore resident Oletha Carter, who voted for PEACE’s petition because she feels the council has no interest in serving its constituents.

PEACE President Jovani Patterson said he anticipates his committee will get more money before the election, but also acknowledged he is letting things develop organically.

At the same time, Patterson criticized city leaders for their organized effort to block his proposal. When it comes to residents’ frustrations with city government, elected leaders don’t take action, Patterson said. But “when people say we should have a say in how our government is structured, the powers of government essentially go into protection mode.”

The Stop Sinclair committee reported more than $155,000 in the bank earlier this month, leveraging large donations from labor groups, as well as contributions from the mayor, six City Council members and one incoming member: Odette Ramos, Danielle McCray, Phylicia Porter, Ryan . Dorsey, Sharon Green Middleton, Cohen and 8th District Democratic candidate Paris Gray.

The group reported Friday that it has spent more than half of that balance from early October.

According to internal Stop Sinclair emails reviewed by The Banner, the group recently sent anti-Question H text messages to approximately 181,000 voters and spent $74,000 on radio and online advertising earlier this month. Stop Sinclair anticipated investing another $25,000 in advertising on black radio stations, targeting a demographic that represented a disproportionate share of those who signed PEACE’s election petition, according to a Banner analysis.

Reaching voters just before they go to the polls, during early voting and on Election Day, is an important part of Stop Sinclair’s strategy, according to the messaging. The group plans to make final calls to voters who voted by mail and send another round of text messages the weekend before Election Day.

Like other members of the anti-Question H coalition, Cohen expressed confidence that residents aware of the proposal do not want it. But the East Baltimore councilman acknowledged there are still too many people who haven’t heard his case. This is partly because the referendum had no name until a few weeks ago, making it difficult to carry out a full-fledged awareness campaign, Cohen said.

While the Stop Sinclair campaign has portrayed Smith as the villain and mastermind behind Question H, some on the City Council have avoided that framing.

“To me, it’s less about the person who funded the ballot question and more about the incredibly negative impact it will have on voters if it passes,” said Cohen, the Democratic candidate to become the next president of the Baltimore City Council. .

Still, antagonizing Smith has proven to be an effective strategy for City Hall in the past. Some saw Scott’s convincing Democratic primary victory over Smith’s preferred candidate, former Mayor Sheila Dixon, as a rebuke to the Sinclair executive’s meddling in city politics.

For at least one attendee at a recent community meeting in Park Heights, the David Smith factor changed his mind on Question H.

Rudy Merrick, a retired U.S. Postal Service employee who has lived in the area for more than three decades, had planned to vote on Question H. Merrick said he doesn’t feel represented by the City Council and believes the mayor It is ineffective. He voted for Dixon, Smith’s candidate, in the Democratic primary.

But when a volunteer from the opposition Baltimore City Not for Sale coalition stood up at the meeting and criticized Smith, he caught Merrick’s attention.

He didn’t know Smith’s name before the meeting. But when he heard the opposition’s argument that the Sinclair executive is trying to “take control” of the city, he explained: “That convinced me quite a bit.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Lee O. Sanderlin contributed to this story.