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When local pro-Palestinian activists proposed a boycott of establishments with ties to Israel, a heated debate on the issue was inevitable. But perhaps no one expected that Mayor Ed Gainey’s communications director, Maria Montaño, would be among the victims.

Montaño was one of the city’s most prominent progressives, an openly transgender woman who was the voice of the mayor’s office. Before that, she was a union activist, speaking on behalf of a movement that was sometimes willing to chain itself to the mayor’s door. But this week she resigned after questions arose about her decision to sign a petition to put the boycott of Israel on the ballot in November.

This shows that referendums do not always go as expected.

As WESA first reported this week, if a petition to vote on the bill succeeds, voters will be asked whether to ban the city from spending money on entities with ties to Israel until the conflict in Gaza ends and aid and rights for Palestinians are restored.

According to the No War Crimes at Our Expense initiative, this would show that voters are opposed to taxpayer money in any way supporting Israel’s Gaza policy. Opponents argue that the measure amounts to collective punishment anti-Semitism and, given the nature of the global economy, could cripple the city’s ability to sign contracts with anyone.

The ballot question is unlikely to hold up in court next week. But even if it does and voters approve, that would only be the beginning of the debate.

First, the City Council would have to pass a law to make the measure effective, and experience shows that the end result may not be quite what the proponents have in mind.

Consider the “park tax” ballot question introduced by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and narrowly passed by city voters in 2019. The goal was to impose an additional property tax by 2020 to upgrade long-neglected parks, especially in struggling neighborhoods. But the City Council delayed implementation due to COVID, and some of the revenue was spent on trucks and other capital expenditures that were not on the agenda presented to voters.

There has also been little enthusiasm for this measure in the city council so far.

The council is on recess this month and has not discussed the issue as a body. But the council’s top three members – President Daniel Lavelle, President pro tempore Bobby Wilson and Finance Chair Erika Strassburger – have written to city and county attorneys expressing “serious concerns that adoption of such a change would have a severe and devastating impact on city operations.”

The letter echoes many previously expressed concerns about the boycott’s inability to implement, while also expressing concern that “this action will destroy the social fabric of Pittsburgh and cause suffering to many in our community.”

Supporters of the ballot question point out that some of their own allies are Jewish, and they say warnings of massive disruption to the city are mere fearmongering. (After all, the City Council would have a say.) But any measure that disqualifies an otherwise qualified vendor from bidding on a contract is likely to result in a lawsuit. And what’s happening in Pittsburgh isn’t likely to stick here.

In 1999, for example, voters approved a ballot measure requiring that construction projects funded with taxpayer money employ a certain percentage of city residents. That quickly prompted Republicans in Harrisburg to draft a bill to preempt that requirement. Given that Republicans nationally portray Democrats as anti-Israel, it’s almost impossible not to imagine the same thing happening here.

That would be a good strategy to keep Gaza in the public eye, and the debate over a boycott could have greater political implications than the boycott itself. A drop in computer sales in Pittsburgh might not affect Dell’s Jerusalem office, let alone Jerusalem itself. But a fight in Harrisburg involving Governor Josh Shapiro? That would be a different story.

And Maria Montaño may not be the last person to struggle with the consequences.

Gainey himself faces re-election next year. And you can ask the campaign of Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato what influence Gaza might have on the election. When she criticized a statement on Gaza by the Democratic Socialists of America just weeks before last year’s election, she sapped a base of energy that she desperately needed in a close race.

Innamorato narrowly prevailed, and Pittsburgh mayors don’t often lose re-election. But I’ve seen polls – also reported by KDKA’s Jon Delano – that suggest Gainey could enter the race with less than 50 percent support no matter who his rival is. And it would be ironic if the fight over this referendum hurt him: Two ballot questions – one about conditions in the county jail, another about the city police’s use of “no-knock search warrants” – may have boosted turnout among reform-minded supporters when he defeated Mayor Bill Peduto in 2021.

At the national level, the concern is even more pressing.

By almost any measure, replacing Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee has bolstered the party. One poll found that enthusiasm among voters has nearly doubled. That energy was palpable last week when Tom Perez, a White House official and Democratic Party icon, spoke to an excited group of Democrats at a West End restaurant.

“The excitement around Kamala Harris and Tim Walz spans the entire ideological spectrum,” he told me afterward. On issues like reproductive freedom, access to health care and workers’ rights, “the contrast is so stark” between them and Trump, he said.

I asked: Could such agitation continue as divisions emerge in the face of looming war in Gaza?

Perez did not answer directly, but instead said: “Peace is the only option… and we will continue to work tirelessly toward that goal.”

There is much more at stake than the outcome of the election, and that election will be decided by other issues as well. But Democrats must hope that their prospects do not depend on whether Israelis and Palestinians can resolve their differences.