Daily Archives: March 25, 2008

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The BAD Prop 98: Getting their $ from landlords, and banking on progressives not showing up

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I do some web work for No on 98.

The Yes on Prop 98 released their financial data, and not a lot of shockers in there. Guess who is financing the campaign. Really, guess, because I’ll bet you will get it right.

If you guessed landlords, you get a gold star! Good job! The Yes on 98 campaign loves to talk about how it’s all ’bout eminent domain, and destroying tenants rights is just a happy coincidence.  It’s funny how the money never lies: Prop 98 is all about ending rent control and tenants rights. Of the approximately $2.7 million raised for Yes on 98, almost $2.2 comes from landlords. 83%! A quick breakdown of where that’s coming from, and you can see that the apartment and mobile home park owners really, really want to see the end of rent control:

  • $1,009,918 from apartment owner interests, including $291,329 from the Apartment Owners Association PAC, $183,450 from individual apartment owners and managers, $124,164 from local apartment association organizations and PACs and $410,974 from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The Jarvis Association has long historical ties to apartment owner interests, including three current board members with direct ties to the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles.
  • $1,252,852 from mobile home park owner interests, including $1,006,832 from individual mobile home park owners, $204,020 from the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Issues PAC, and $42,000 from the Manufactured Housing Education Trust.

    • These landlord interests are betting tenants and pro-tenant voters won’t bother to show up at the June primary. Heck, Jon Coupal, head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, aka the Prop 13 people, out and out says it at one of their meetings that I found a clip of online. We have to make sure that every progressive voter in SF, LA, and the rest of the tenant-heavy communities shows up and votes on June 3 (or before by using their VBM ballot). Check about 50 seconds into the clip where he talks about the “other good thing”. Yup, for conservatives, low turnout is always a good thing.  We simply cannot have Prop 98 passing for a litany of reasons, many of which have been spoken here before. But, just in case, here are some links here, here, here, and here.

    Finally, if you are a video person, the No on 98 campaign has a video contest with a $1,000 reward. Videos are due on March 28 (this FRIDAY!) so get them in soon.