Charter Reform or Power Grab? What Baltimore Voters Need to Know

In November 2025, Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen appointed five council members to a special Charter Review Committee to review and make recommendations on changing the City Charter. The council president chose District 3 Councilman Ryan Dorsey to chair the panel. Dorsey has stated publicly that the charter is “full of things that should never have been put into it and that city agencies should be established by ordinance rather than be stipulated in the City Charter.”

Dorsey has said the charter should be amended to give the mayor and City Council more governing flexibility. This is nothing more than a euphemism for encouraging less citizen input and involvement in determining city policies and spending priorities. Changing the charter requires the voters’ approval via referendum, whereas passing an ordinance simply requires the affirmative vote of eight council members and the assent of the mayor.

Based on the recommendation of the Charter Review Committee, the council recently adopted three bills containing numerous charter revisions that will appear on the ballot for voter approval in November. Voters should be very wary of the myriad changes and deletions resulting from these charter proposals. For example: City Council Bill 26-0190, among other changes, will eliminate the long-standing policy requirement that contracts must be awarded to the “lowest responsive and responsible bidder.”  Eliminating this provision without clearly defining an alternate policy opens the door to corruption and steering contracts to favored contractors or major political contributors and does not serve the best interests of taxpayers.

Bill 26-0191 changes the veto and override time requirements for the budget and other bills by providing the council more time to potentially override a mayoral veto, thus giving more power to the council. Bill 26-0192 gets rid of the requirement for the Board of Estimates’ approval of minor privileges, such as sidewalk and street closings or the approval of private signs extending into the public right of way. This is currently a public process requiring the board to hold a public hearing, affording opposing or affected adjacent property owners an opportunity to object. Neither the council nor the committee has articulated what will take the place of the existing process.

Baltimore City is a $4.9 billion corporation that exists for the purpose of serving its citizens. The City Charter governs and constrains the power of the mayor and the City Council, and the citizens must vote to change it. Eliminating or modifying any of those constraints to vest more power solely in the hands of the mayor and City Council, without a clear explanation of checks and balances to be implemented protecting the voters and taxpayers’ interests, is ill-advised. No billion-dollar corporation changes or eliminates its operating policies without disseminating the replacement policy first.

I am urging the citizens of Baltimore to beware of being further marginalized by these proposed charter reforms aimed at creating more “governing flexibility” for the mayor and City Council, which actually translates into less citizen oversight and control. The mayor and City Council already have a propensity to ignore public concerns and objections. Therefore, we should be highly vigilant and skeptical of any charter amendments that propose to eliminate charter policies that are in the best interest of the citizens and taxpayers of Baltimore.