CA Proposition 33: Deja Vu All Over Again on Rent Control
Rents are too damn high for millions of Californians. Half of tenants in the state pay more than 30% of their income for housing. A quarter pay more than 50%. And despite claims by those who see moral degeneration as the root cause of homelessness, the cost of housing is responsible for 58% of those joining the ranks of the unhoused.
There is broad and increasing awareness of the affordability issues associated with housing in the United States. Here in San Diego it can seem as though construction on large apartment complexes is rampant; the problem is they are mostly competing for the top end of the rental market. And those people already have a place to live.
Is there a basis for public support of rent control? Maybe things have changed from the last two times voters overwhelmingly rejected eliminating a state law limiting rent control by localities. But the issue gets tricky as soon as one delves into it.
Both proponents and opponents claim Proposition 33 will impact homelessness. A major UC San Francisco study found that sky-high rents are fueling the homelessness crisis in California. The counter claim is that rent control will discourage expansion of the housing market because construction will no longer be profitable.
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I’ll inject some controversy here and say most claims about the cause of homelessness in political campaigns don’t contain the kernel of truth that private enterprise is incapable of a solution.
Commodification of housing combined with families relying on home ownership as a source of wealth means government involvement is needed. Not ‘low income housing’; social housing accessible to wage earners. (Again, the devil is in the details, but private capital simply can not do this.)
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Okay, back to the election and what’s appearing on our ballots.
Proposition 33, aiming to enable more local rent control by repealing state law, is supported by a majority of progressive leaning activist organizations in California. Nurses and Teachers Unions, the ACLU, numerous anti-poverty organizations including ACCE, progressive political clubs statewide, and affordable housing groups have all endorsed the measure.
Part of their advocacy is a claim that rent control is banned throughout the state. Overly constrained is a more apt description. Current law prevents local governments from expanding rent control; many localities in California already have some rent control in place.
The opposition to Prop 33, starts with the expected evil landlords and builders, includes chambers of commerce, Latino and veterans groups, mortgage lenders, and California YIMBY….
What!? YIMBYs against rent control? Yup.
Prop 33 is so broad in what it allows and so narrow in what state laws it undoes that localities like Huntington Beach, which oppose any new apartment construction, can write ordinances making it impossible for development due to ‘rent control’ restrictions. There are more of the almost-always-white enclaves than anybody wants to admit.
Via Politico:
State Sen. Toni Atkins, the former Democratic leader in the Senate, as well as Assembly Appropriations Chair Buffy Wicks confirmed to POLITICO that they are firmly against the November ballot measure. The initiative, bankrolled by AIDS Healthcare Foundation president and political provocateur Michael Weinstein, seeks to repeal a state law barring cities across the Golden State from rent-controlling newer apartments. Two of the state’s largest construction unions, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Norcal Carpenters Union, are also against the initiative.
What about the localities that should be willing to pass reasonable rent control laws? For the build, baby, build set, the risk is simply too great.
According to the Urban Institute, empirical studies in Delaware and DC demonstrate that rent control doesn’t always discourage new construction.
Note the word “new” there. Most rent control laws exempt new construction, and Proposition 33 doesn’t say anything about it, because it would be up to cities and counties to set rules if they choose to go with rent control.
Let’s face reality about the commodification of housing. Single family homes are being snapped up with cash-only offers by private equity groups whose intention is to take advantage of renters’ weak position in the marketplace. Cash offers are typically below market value, but offer a shorter, less complicated escrow period for sellers.
Effective rent control could stymie these profit-seeking enterprises. Having sold a relative’s house as executor of their estate (and refused cash offers from investors) I wonder where all this ‘cash’ originates. I suspect there’s a lot of money-laundering behind all these LLCs; the Biden administration has proposed banking regulations that would make cleaning up cartel cash more difficult– Republicans and a few Democrats are whining about over-regulation.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has joined with other states and the Department of Justice in a major lawsuit against RealPage, a software company used by large landlords. Using supposedly private information about rental pricing, its algorithm effectively created a cartel of corporate landlords and raised the cost of housing via inflated rents.
No wonder proponents of Prop 33 say rent control is the only way to rein in predatory corporate landlords.
There’s another factor connected with Prop 33, and that’s who’s picking up the tab.
The Aids Healthcare Foundation is a worldwide network of providers for prevention of and caring for patients with HIV. They do good work, and finance their endeavors by operating high-profit pharmacies. These gains have been channeled into political activities like the current rent control initiative.
But a lot of people HATE the Aids Healthcare Foundation. They have a long history of contentious court battles, and a strong-willed leader who’s not afraid to mince words.
The framing that holds rent control laws discourage construction will be used by the real estate industry to assert that homelessness will increase and that property values will suffer. They will spend roughly twice what the pro-Prop 33 coalition will spend. And in Prop 34 (I will cover tomorrow) they aim to squash the funding stream of the Aids Healthcare Foundation so they’ll be unable to continue their advocacy.
AHF owns properties in downtown Los Angeles that it has converted into housing for low income people. The LA Times ran a series accusing them of being slumlords, with horror stories about disabled people trapped on higher floors by constantly malfunctioning elevators. While there’s no denying the factuality of the LAT reporting, the intentionality attributed to AHF in its aftermath has a whiff of opposition influence.
Progressives in California have lined up behind the rent control cause with good reason. And issues with AHF have motivated people with otherwise good intentions to oppose Prop 33.
I’ll vote for Prop 33 and hope for the best; communities which twist and overstate rent control will suffer the consequences in the long term. The rest of California’s renters deserve a break.
California Proposition 33, the Prohibit State Limitations on Local Rent Control Initiative
Official arguments https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2024/general/pdf/prop33.pdf
No on 33
Facebook ~ X(formerly twitter)
The Yes on 33 campaign will be on tv this month as part of a $5 million ad buy. Advertising will feature images of palm tree-lined streets and families packing up their things to a song modeled on the The Mamas & The Papas’ “California Dreamin’”: “All the homes are gone / And the rent’s too high / I work too damn hard / Can’t afford to stay,” it says. “California’s Leavin’ / The dream’s drifting away.”
Our Revolution, born of Sen Bernie Sanders' campaign for President, has launched a massive get-out-the-vote campaign in support of Prop. 33, promising to contact nearly 2 million voters across the state through text messages and phone calls.
Similar measures failed in 2018 and 2020 amid fierce opposition led by landlord groups and the real-estate industry. Opponents argued the proposal would hurt mom-and-pop landlords and discourage the construction of affordable housing.
State lawmakers in 2019 approved a 10 percent statewide cap on annual rent increases. The law exempted new construction for 15 years and is set to expire in 2030.
Landlord groups, realtors and business advocates will argue voters have soundly rejected similar proposals twice. They say expanding rent control could reduce property values and hurt small landlords and single-family homeowners who rent out their properties. This is propaganda, pure and simple; such proposals tied to rent control exist nowhere.
Like I said earlier, this issue is not simple. Opponents are putting up a smokescreen that’s worked before. Polling taken before the ad wars started this month says voters narrowly approve of the measure.
I will vote Yes, knowing that there are no magic solutions to complicated societal problems aggravated by neo-liberalism’s mythology about the marketplace.
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SIDE NOTE (via Politico):
“One million people have now registered to vote this cycle through Vote.org. That’s a big milestone, including 17 percent who live in the seven top swing states. More than one-third of the new registrations are from 18-year-olds (way up from 8 percent in 2020), and 79 percent are from voters under 35.”
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About the Voter Guide.
I’ve been compiling voter guides for San Diegans for over a decade on various platforms. I have a progressive point of view tempered with life experience informing me of what’s possible and what’s bullshit.
Portions of this guide will be published most weekdays throughout September. I’ll publish a comprehensive guide (with links if you care) on Monday of the week ballots are mailed out. (October 7)
The Democratic supermajority in California has given rise to some mediocre politicians. I won’t recommend Democratic candidates unless I can say I feel more than ‘meh’ about them.
I can’t recommend Republicans because they’ve chosen to ally themselves with authoritarian, anti-democratic, and theocratic forces. I won’t suggest third parties because they can’t win in today’s system –this is a guide for THIS election.
While I’d like for everybody to agree with my choices, we all know that won’t happen. As long as you actually vote, I’ll be satisfied.
Yesterday: California’s Proposition 32: Something’s Better Than Nothing, I Suppose
Previously: California Ballot Measures Two thru Six
Tomorrow: California Proposition 34 - A crude attempt to punish a non-profit making trouble for the real estate market.
Check your voter registration at
https://www.sdvote.com/content/rov/en/voter-info-lookup.html
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Wednesday News to Peruse
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Time for a Reckoning at San Diego Unified by Scott Lewis at Voice of San Diego
Something is dreadfully, horrifically wrong at the District and its Board of Education faces a moment of reckoning. The trustees have let a cancer metastasize throughout the district – a culture that tolerated abusive and violent people.
I’m not sure how they restore trust, but saying this is all old news is not going to do it.
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We Don’t Need No Education - MAGA’s assault on “the heart of the beast” by Nina Burleigh at American Freakshow
I got a first hand look at what happens when rightists take aim at “the beast” of the universities at the University of Florida during the 22-23 school year. The DeSantis/Tallahassee Republican assault on “woke” campuses was already in full swing when I went to Gainesville to interview professors, administrators, and students. Professors were confused and nervous. Jeffrey Adler, a history professor who specializes in the history of racial violence, said he had considered revising his courses but realized doing so would make it impossible to accurately teach the material. “The notion that I would teach about lynching in ways that didn’t make people sitting there uncomfortable is absurd,” he said. “My job is to make people think about things they don’t want to think about. What’s a neutral attitude toward Hitler? I’ve heard from other professors that they were strongly discouraged from using the phrase ‘social justice’ in syllabi and classroom. This is not Marxist revolution, this is social justice!”
Interestingly, conservative students I met on the Gainesville campus didn’t feel terribly repressed. Before DeSantis’ anti-woke campaign, the campus was hardly unfriendly to the right. White nationalist Richard Spencer and Donald Trump Jr. had both spoken there. Spencer’s visit, soon after the deadly Charlottesville march, brought outrage and police. But Don Junior appeared in 2019 as an invited guest, funded by student fees. The university provided heavy security. Protesters showed up, but the speech went off without incident.
Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025. But his own “Agenda47” is not so very different from the notorious manifesto. “Trump’s Ten Principles for Great Schools leading to Great Jobs” will use federal power to push schools to remove gender discussion, put prayer and jingoism back in school and teach kids that “America is the most virtuous country in the world.”
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Why thousands of Florida students are not being taught sex ed by Judd Legum at Popular Information
In May 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed Florida House Bill 1069, a law that requires sex education classes in the state to conform to right-wing ideology. Specifically, the law requires all sex education classes to teach students that sex is binary, "either male or female," even though that is inaccurate. It also mandates that students are instructed that sex is defined exclusively by "internal and external genitalia present at birth," and these sex roles are "binary, stable, and unchangeable." This requirement erases the existence of trans and nonbinary people. Schools also must "teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected standard for all school-age students" and "the benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage."
To enforce these new rules and other aspects of the DeSantis administration's political agenda, HB 1069 also requires "all materials used to teach reproductive health" to be approved in advance by the Florida Department of Education (FDE) or use textbooks pre-approved by the state. Previously, sex education curricula were approved by district school boards. Florida parents can opt-out of sex education lessons on behalf of their children.
The FDE instructed school districts to submit their materials for sex education by September 30, 2023. The school districts met the deadline, but the FDE never responded. Florida counties were placed in a no-win situation as not teaching sex education, a mandatory course, at all is a violation of state law.
