CALIFORNIA—This November, a rent control measure called the Rental Affordability Act (RAA) will be on the ballot for California voters to decide on, as was approved by California’s Office of the Secretary of State on February 3.
The Secretary of State approved the ballot measure after verification of a petition asking to qualify the RAA for the November ballot. The petition had almost 1 million signatures—though only 623,212 signatures were necessary to qualify the RAA.
The policy has been endorsed by several government officials including Senator Bernie Sanders and California Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Further, the RAA has seen endorsements from city council members in Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Oakland, and Alameda.
The ballot measure’s leading sponsor is Housing Is A Human Right (HHR), the Los Angeles-based housing advocacy branch of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
If approved, the RAA would eliminate the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which was enacted in 1995 by the California State Legislature. Costa-Hawkins implemented statewide restrictions on what type of rent control California’s cities and counties can adopt. For example, it banned rent control on properties like condominiums and townhouses. In the place of Costa-Hawkins, the RAA would allow cities and counties to create rent policy at their own discretion.
This is not the first time a ballot measure tried to repeal Costa-Hawkins. In 2018, California Proposition 10 was rejected by voters but would have removed Costa-Hawkins and give more rent control power to cities and counties.
Whether history will be an indicator of the future has been hotly disputed.
California Apartment Association CEO Tom Bannon has said, “Voters overwhelming rejected the measure the last time it was on the ballot. Once we educate voters about Weinstein’s latest housing-freeze measure, it’s bound to fail just as miserably as Prop. 10.”
But the RAA coalition continues to rally and campaign around the initiative.
Upon the announcement of the RAA’s ballot approval, René Christian Moya, the campaign director for HHR and the RAA, said in a statement, “Now that our ballot initiative signatures have been certified, it’s onward and upward to November…We look forward to the fight ahead.”
