Prop Fest is a collaboration from Bay Curious and The Bay podcasts, where we break down each of the 10 statewide propositions that will be on your November 2024 ballot. Check out KQED’s Voter Guide for more information on state and local races.
Today, reporter Vanessa Rancaño helps us understand what’s at stake in Proposition 32, which would remove state limits on rent control that have been in place since 1995, and give power back to local governments to enact or change rent control policies.
Olivia Allen-Price: Ya know, Bay Curious actually did an explainer that covered some of those things about rent control back in 2018. So I would say if the efficacy of rent control is really important to how you vote, you might go give that a listen for some additional context. We’ll link to it in our show notes or just head online and search something like: “Bay Curious Rent Control 2018” and it should be the first thing that pops up.
Vanessa Rancaño: Yes, that is a great overview of the arguments. I think the only thing I would add is that more recently we have seen some economists come forward to argue that there is research and there are real world examples that refute this traditional narrative, which they say is based more on economic theory than empirical evidence.
Mark Paul is a Rutgers economist who studies rent control and also very much supports it.
Mark Paul: Most mainstream economists are taught these theoretical models where perfect competition exists, there’s no such thing as market power, you know where landlords have more power than renters. In their models that they’re thinking about this there’s unlimited supply of affordable housing, homelessness doesn’t exist, and corporate landlords that use algorithmic pricing to jack prices up, something that we see the Federal Trade Commission going after corporate landlords for, things like that can’t exist because they would just get outcompeted. But I think people underestimate the bias most economists have against government intervention.
