Thousands of signatures put a question on Providence’s November ballot. One country is the target.

Dave Talan thinks it’s hateful. Rep. David Morales thinks it’s the right thing to do. And Providence Mayor Brett Smiley thinks it’s legally unenforceable.

The candidates in Providence’s mayoral race are divided over Question 7, a citizen-led proposal that will appear before Providence voters on the Nov. 3 ballot.

The ordinance — buoyed by two rounds of petitions, thousands upon thousands of signatures, and a seldom-used provision of the city charter — would limit city investments when they are tied to foreign countries “conducting severe violations of human rights such as ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.”

Israel is not named in the proposed ordinance, but the country’s actions against Palestinians are at the crux of the campaign for its passage.

Morales, a democratic socialist challenging Smiley in the primary, joined the mayor and Talan, the race’s lone Republican, at Bell Street Chapel on Federal Hill on Aug. 25, where a mayoral forum outlined the candidates’ differences.

Outside the Unitarian Universalist church, the Rhode Island Coalition for Israel had organized a modest rally against the measure to coincide with the forum.

“It’s absolutely targeted right at Israel,” Ken Schneider, president of the Rhode Island Coalition for Israel, said of the proposal, holding a massive banner with the group’s name and website in his hand. “Even though it doesn’t even say the word Israel in the ballot question, it’s all about Israel.”

Should the measure pass, Schneider added, “We think it would hurt Israel. We think it would hurt Jews.”

Talan joined the coalition members lingering outside the church who, Schneider said, were mainly there to educate voters about Question 7, rather than tell voters which candidate to support. Talan sits on the coalition’s board and calls the measure a case of “open antisemitism” that would cost the city’s pension fund millions.

“It would make the 15,000 Jewish residents in our community feel uncomfortable,” Talan wrote in an email to Rhode Island Current. “And it would send a terrible message to anyone thinking of investing in Providence.”

At the forum inside the chapel, Talan castigated the measure, as well as Morales’ support for it. Morales, meanwhile, defended Question 7 to loud applause and a few boos. Smiley got some applause of his own when he argued the measure would conflict with the city charter.

Smiley, who converted to Judaism in 2024, called the measure “another moment that’s going to create division and sow division within our community.”

The Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island is opposing Question 7, according to a statement from its president and CEO Steven A. Baker.

“Like many of our neighbors in Providence, we have concerns about how this proposed measure would impact the health of Providence’s pension fund and the financial well-being of our public safety and municipal retirees,” Baker wrote.

Over 6,000 verified signatures collected

The effort to get the divestment question before voters took a united front: Providence for Palestine, the coalition behind the divestment proposal, comprises an assortment of progressive groups — Jewish Voice for Peace Rhode Island, Reclaim Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Democratic Socialists of America and AFT Local 6516, the Brown University higher education workers’ union.

Under Section 209 of the city charter, Providence residents can petition for a city ordinance with the weight of at least 1,000 signatures from qualified voters behind them. Organizers cleared that benchmark with 1,005 signatures, according to City Clerk Tina Mastroianni. Those signatures were received by the City Council on April 16, which was then charged with acting on the proposal.

The council didn’t enact the proposal, so ordinance supporters had to get signatures from an additional 5% of Providence’s qualified voters. Organizers needed a total of 5,549 signatures, and 6,036 were ultimately verified and qualified, Mastroianni said.

Providence for Palestine organizer Adit Sabnis said in a phone interview that the signature-collecting effort began modestly at first, with 20 to 30 people beginning to circulate the petition around February and March this year.

The goal was simple. “Just talking to as many people as possible,” Sabnis said.

“We would go out to different events where there were things happening,” Sabnis added. “Sometimes we’d just go around, walk around neighborhoods. Sometimes we’d say ‘OK, does anyone want to chill at the pedestrian bridge at 7 p.m.?’”

As the months stretched into summer, more than 100 people had joined the effort, Sabnis said, and “people were bringing their friends in” to help collect signatures. Volunteers worked neighborhood happenings and public events, with campaign-related outings serving as valuable venues once election season intensified with mayoral debates and forums spreading across the city.

The organization collected more than 10,000 signatures, Sabnis said.

“Honestly, we were shocked — not shocked, but we were overwhelmed by how receptive and happy people were to see us doing this,” Sabnis said. “So it was really, really validating to see.”

Why did organizers turn to the oft-neglected Section 209, rather than more traditional means of persuading elected officials via lobbying or advocacy pressure?

“So many times, the leaders and politicians that we try and lobby have other interests at heart, and it almost feels like a futile effort,” Sabnis said. “I really like the idea of us reclaiming our power in the sense that we’re no longer going and begging politicians to do what’s right by their constituents. We’re taking it into our own hands.”

Such petitions are unusual in Providence but not unheard of. Mastroianni pointed to a 2014 effort which predated her time in the office and would have established a minimum wage for hotel workers. It had enough signatures and won approval with a council resolution, but it never reached the ballot.

The year after that, Mastroianni added, residents tried to establish another ballot question, this time over public funding for stadiums, but it was halted because it involved an appropriation of money — something specifically excluded from Section 209’s permissions, per a city Law Department memo at the time.

‘Expertly written’

Broadly speaking, divestment is a strategy for disentangling from institutional investments in companies, industries or governments which an investor no longer wants to support. The ordinance underlying Question 7 would limit the city’s investment in entities involved in genocide and other violations of human rights.

The proposed ordinance defines companies “complicit” in these violations if they “directly and knowingly enable and contribute” to such abuses. Under the ordinance, direct investments in eligible companies would cease, and the city treasurer would review the municipal portfolio annually for compliance.

Most of Providence’s pension money, however, is not invested directly in individual companies or countries, a May 2026 investment report shows.

Per the report’s numbers, the city’s pension fund was valued at about $636.3 million as of May 31, its monies spread across an array of external managers, index funds and other investment strategies.

Among the holdings were $241.1 million managed through a State Street Russell 1000 strategy, $42.3 million in a Fidelity international index fund and $8.2 million in Vanguard’s Total International Bond Fund.

During a similar divestment debate in 2024, Providence officials had said that the city held no State of Israel Bonds directly, but that the then-$7.5 million invested in the Vanguard bond fund held about $30,000 in Israeli bonds.

The Brown Daily Herald reported then that the city still held a little over $2.3 million in Israeli bonds in 2021, but that these matured in 2022 and were not reinvested.

The proposed ordinance would treat these indirect investments differently from securities held directly by the city.

“If the city has or plans to invest indirectly in either co-mingled accounts or state-managed funds, it will officially and publicly ask the managers of these accounts or funds to consider adopting the above restrictions on its investments,” the ordinance reads.

Salar Ghahramani, a professor of business law and international law at Penn State University who studies public pension divestment mandates, said outside management does not always mean an investor is unable to fulfill divestment obligations.

“They would simply ask the external managers…to shift the existing investments and to change the existing contract that the city has to another investment strategy or portfolio that the external manager offers, in order to remain compliant with the initiative,” Ghahramani said.

Ghahramani cautioned, however, that existing contracts may not always allow immediate flexibility, and investments can be subject to certain time-bound terms. That could prevent the city from shifting money around before a certain date, Ghahramani said, although he was not privy to the specific terms of Providence’s investments.

Carl Austin Miller Grondin, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, said that the ordinance “contains broad and conflicting provisions regarding direct and indirect investments, while expressly recognizing the City’s existing fiduciary responsibilities.”

Miller Grondin also cited a state law that “establishes fiduciary obligations that govern the management of City funds,” but did not point to a specific law.

Vanguard, which managed the international index fund for Providence in 2024, did not respond to inquiries about its practice or policies regarding investors who need to divest from specific companies or countries.

As for the protections the ordinance affords the city’s pension fund, Ghahramani said fiduciary duties of trustees involve two components: “the maximization of the returns for the beneficiaries,” but also abiding in the law.

When it comes to fulfilling these fiduciary duties, Ghahramani said, “Breaking the law to maximize returns for the beneficiaries would be a hard sell.”

What stood out most to the professor, however, was the way in which the ordinance was “expertly written.”

Generally, divestment policies have been at the state level and target particular countries, Ghahramani said, but Providence’s Question 7 relies on a broader definition rooted in international treaties and, also uncommon, a notion of “complicity.”

While other examples of this treaty-based wording may exist, Providence’s divestment measure is the only one Ghahramani said he has encountered. He noted the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes the Constitution, federal law and U.S. treaties as “the supreme Law of the Land.” Ghahramani thought Question 7 “implicitly yet expertly incorporates” that principle by relying on treaties in which the U.S. is a party.

Whether Providence could make those changes and leave its portfolio’s performance unscathed is unclear. Miller Grondin said the city’s Law Department has concluded that Question 7 cannot lawfully direct or restrict Providence’s current investment decisions, because the Board of Investment Commissioners is the only body with the authority to make investment decisions under the city charter.

Attorneys for the Jewish Alliance made similar arguments in a July 21 letter to the city, contending that it could “create an inherent irreconcilable conflict” with the city’s fiduciary obligations to its pensioners.

The financial effects of the proposal depend on the particular restrictions attached to a portfolio, Clair Brown, an economics professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies public pension divestment and fiduciary duty, said in an email.

Brown’s research has focused on divestment from fossil fuels rather than countries accused of human rights violations. But at least in the pension systems she studied, Brown said her research showed that “risk must be part of fiduciary duty,” and that fossil fuel divestment was a “prudent” choice within that set of obligations.

Still, Brown cautioned that individual scrutiny is needed to ascertain the effects of a particular divestment. Generally, the more companies a divestment policy excludes, Brown said, the more it can limit a portfolio’s ability to balance risks and expected returns.

Targeting Israel and future violators

Whatever the ultimate financial effects, supporters and opponents alike agree that the campaign is going after one country in particular.

“Israel is one of the primary targets now because of their genocide in Palestine,” Sabnis said, and added that it was written to accommodate future violators as well. “It’s something that we hope will set us up for the long term, so that we don’t have to keep having this conversation.”

From the other side’s perspective, the divestment question is “antisemitic” and “illegal and unenforceable,” Talan said in an email ahead of the rally and forum Tuesday. The mayoral candidate said he would resist implementing the ordinance even if Providence voters approve it.

“I will instruct all city financial people to ignore it, and dare the pro-Palestinian sponsors to challenge me in court,” Talan said.

When a question about the proposal came up at Tuesday’s forum, Morales defended it, saying that he’s heard from residents an unwillingness to “see any form of public investment or public taxpayer dollars…going towards genocide or rights of humans being violated overseas.”

“I think we have a moral responsibility to speak out when injustices are happening, and recognize that even here at the local level, we have a responsibility…And the way in which the ordinance is written is very thoughtful in terms of the approach on how we ensure that it is compliant on a legal basis.”

Loud applause followed Morales’ answer, along with a few boos mixed in.

An email ahead of the forum from Ben Shanahan, Morales’ campaign manager, said legal or implementation questions should not be used “as a reason to disregard the will of the voters,” and that the divestment proposal already includes “language intended to avoid some of the legal criticisms raised against it, such as a severability clause and considerations of fiduciary duties.”

Smiley, meanwhile, had previously expressed his opposition to the measure and remained opposed Tuesday night. He told the packed room that the proposal would conflict with the city charter, and he said that the city’s treasurer had also deemed it unenforceable.

Outside the church, before the forum, the Israel coalition’s Schneider predicted litigation in the city’s future.

“There’s lawyers that are lined up,” Schneider said, pointing to legal disputes in Pittsburgh and Somerville, Massachusetts, over comparable divestment measures.

The Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island did not respond to a question about whether it would take legal action. Baker said the alliance plans to work with partners throughout Providence leading up to November’s general election in hopes of educating voters about the potential financial consequences of approving Question 7, as well as “the message of division and potential exclusion this ballot measure sends to the Jewish community.”

Providence for Palestine will also campaign for the measure’s passage, with special attention on the primary, “because we know so much of our ability to enforce it is also dependent on having allies [on the City Council],” Sabnis said.

Sabnis said he was encouraged about the ballot question’s prospects, given the alliance’s success in securing the signatures Question 7 needed to exist in the first place. He mentioned organizers who approached people to sign the petition only to be told no. The reason?

“‘I already signed this. I already signed this. I already signed this,’” Sabnis recalled hearing. “We’re like, ‘Dang, we have that much reach.’”

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