Exposé: Big Real Estate's Money Trails to Kill the Expansion of Rent Control in California
Corporate landlords discreetly spent millions so they could keep charging unfair rents
2024 was a very good year for corporate landlords in California.
They stopped the expansion of rent control by killing Proposition 33, although they spent tens of millions of dollars to do it. They passed Proposition 34 to silence one of their most tenacious enemies. And as they plodded, schemed, and bullied, corporate landlords largely got a pass from the mainstream media. By the start of 2025, for Big Real Estate, the good times were back.
I battled those corporate landlords. I was the advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right, the housing advocacy division of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and I investigated Big Real Estate for the Yes on Prop 33 and No on Prop 34 campaigns. By the end of it, after keeping close tabs on our opponents for more than a year, I was shocked that journalists had failed to report about the brazen greed, massive contributions, shell games, and corporate scandals that I found and wrote about.
Not only did reporters fail to thoroughly inform voters before they went to the polls, but they also missed one king-hell of a story.
So, only a couple of weeks after Prop 33 was quashed, I started digging deeper into Big Real Estate’s money trails. I wanted to explain, to the public, what really happened behind the scenes during the real estate industry’s ruthless, big-money push to kill Prop 33 and pass Prop 34…
In the fall of 2024, Proposition 33 and Proposition 34 were two of the most closely watched races in California. Prop 33, sponsored by AIDS Healthcare Foundation and backed by a coalition of activists, labor unions, and civic leaders, aimed to end statewide rent control restrictions. Prop 34, sponsored by the California Apartment Association, the powerful front group for corporate landlords, sought to stop AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s work on rent control and tenant advocacy. On Election Day, Prop 33 was defeated while Prop 34 was barely approved.
Big Real Estate’s victories weren’t all that shocking: corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association shelled out more than $135 million to get the results they wanted, while AIDS Healthcare Foundation spent around $60 million. A huge, insurmountable difference for most political races.
But as I further examined the California Apartment Association’s campaign finance filings for 2023 and 2024, it became clearer that the CAA and many of the largest corporate landlords in the United States had executed, under the public’s radar, a highly elaborate, multi-million-dollar operation.
The filings revealed money trails that connected corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association to numerous elected officials, candidates, and political groups — many of whom either endorsed the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign or the CAA’s Yes on Prop 34 campaign or both.
And the documents showed that back-room deals started well in advance of November 2024, with a number of elected officials accepting tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, in political money from corporate landlords and the CAA.
This research underscores a special report I wrote in 2021. It uncovered that corporate landlords and California Apartment Association’s deep-pocketed influence reaches into nearly every county in California, buying political favors — from state, county, and city elected officials — that clearly impact tenant protections and housing policies.
The key discoveries in this exposé include:
In 2023 and 2024, a group of 355 corporate landlords and smaller landlords shelled out an astonishing total of $135,875,365 to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee, which financed the CAA’s No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34 campaigns. Out of those 355 contributors, a core group of only 68 corporate landlords, who contributed at least $100,000 to the CAA Issues Committee, delivered $131,765,298 — or 97 percent of all campaign cash sent to the CAA Issues Committee.
Many of the country’s largest corporate landlords — Equity Residential, AvalonBay Communities, Essex Property Trust, Camden Property Trust, GID, UDR, MG Properties, Greystar, AIR Communities, and The Related Companies — delivered millions in campaign cash to one or more of three California Apartment Association political committees to kill the expansion of rent control in California and to silence AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s housing advocacy work.
Those millions bought a small army of at least 21 consultants to work on either the No on Prop 33 campaign or the Yes on Prop 34 or both.
As the Prop 33 and Prop 34 campaigns unfolded, Big Real Estate carried out sneaky shell games to avoid scrutiny from the public and reporters. Corporate landlords first contributed millions in campaign contributions to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee, then the CAA moved corporate-landlord cash to No on Prop 33 or Yes on Prop 34 — at the California Secretary of State website, it looked as if the California Apartment Association, not corporate landlords, were financing those campaigns. Corporate landlords did the same when buying political favors, such as securing endorsements for No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34. Big Real Estate delivered cash to one or more of the CAA’s political committees, then the CAA distributed corporate-landlord money to elected officials, candidates, and political groups either directly or through obscure, CAA-connected political committees. It was all done to protect corporate landlords’ outsized profits and to allow them to keep charging excessive, unfair rents.
Corporate landlords who contributed at least $100,000 to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee, in 2023 and 2024, also delivered $2,457,720 to the CAA’s Independent Expenditure Committee and $263,265 to the CAA’s Political Action Committee, which was discreetly spent to buy political favors.
Democrats Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Sen. Toni Atkins, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, Assemblymember Evan Low, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, among others, accepted campaign cash from corporate landlords and the CAA. Those same politicians endorsed No on Prop 33 or Yes on Prop 34 and actively campaigned for No on Prop 33 or Yes on Prop 34.
The California Apartment Association’s political committees also funded state politicians’ ballot measure committees — a kind of slush fund that elected officials use for travel, meals, entertainment, and other expenses. For one case, it paid for three bills from a high-end bespoke tailor. For another, it covered charges for pricey Super Bowl tickets and a “tailgate experience.”
The CAA and corporate landlords’ money trails strongly suggest they financed a dirty political trick to stop Prop 33 that involved Huntington Beach City Councilman Tony Strickland, a conservative Republican who urged his colleagues to support Prop 33 as a way to get around state-mandated housing production policies. Trying to change the minds of Democratic voters who supported Prop 33, a group of Democratic politicians, who received corporate-landlord money and opposed Prop 33, seized upon Strickland’s comments to frame the pro-rent control measure as a dangerous Republican plot to obstruct housing construction in California. Tellingly, Strickland and a former state assembly member who served Huntington Beach also banked contributions from corporate landlords and the CAA.
No on Prop 33 endorsers such as the Asian Business Association PAC, the Central City Association of Los Angeles, the Fresno Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles County Business Federation, the California Chamber of Commerce, the San Francisco Eastern Neighborhoods Democratic Club, and the NAACP California-Hawaii State Conference grabbed cash contributions from corporate landlords through the California Apartment Association.
Yes on Prop 34 endorsers such as the NAACP California-Hawaii State Conference, Southern California Armenian Democrats, California Chamber of Commerce, and United Democratic Club also raked in cash contributions from corporate landlords through the California Apartment Association.
Abandoning the housing justice movement, California YIMBY, YIMBY Action, and Abundant Housing LA, all of whom officially endorsed the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign, benefited politically by making alliances with corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association. And the California Apartment Association spent major campaign cash on at least 20 politicians endorsed by California YIMBY, YIMBY Action, or Abundant Housing LA. Most times, corporate landlords and the CAA used obscure, little-known political committees to deliver financial backing. (Corporate landlords also paid for a swanky “YIMBY Prom,” hosted by YIMBY Action, in San Francisco only weeks before Election Day.)
While corporate landlords and the CAA were working to stop Prop 33 and pass Prop 34, they also shelled out campaign cash to sway local elections in California. In 2024, corporate landlords and the CAA helped kill a pro-rent control measure in Larkspur; helped repeal existing rent control policies in Fairfax; helped pass an election reform initiative in Richmond; helped pass a pro-density measure in San Mateo; and helped kill a parcel-tax measure that would have generated money to repair streets and improve parks in National City.
This investigation reveals, yet again, that corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association have a stranglehold on state and local politicians, making it extremely difficult for activists to pass much-needed tenant protections such as rent control and just cause evictions. In fact, the CAA’s reputation is so foul among activists that it’s routinely called the “California Anti-tenant Association.”
Corporate landlords, as a result, can keep charging unfair, excessive rents, which fuels the housing affordability and homelessness crises. Californians, in other words, pay the ultimate price for Big Real Estate’s devious, multi-million-dollar schemes.
This investigation also shows something bigger and more troubling: corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association will go to any lengths to protect, and grow, their profits and to destroy their enemies — and many politicians, desperate to keep their power, are more than willing to help.
Judging by their actions, corporate landlords, the California Apartment Association, and certain politicians care little, if anything, about the long-term impacts of their slick maneuvers on the poor and middle and working class. For Big Real Estate and many elected officials, Californians, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, are only pawns in their game.
Corporate landlords readying for battle
It’s no exaggeration to say that AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the world’s largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit, has saved the lives of millions around the globe.
Based in Los Angeles, AHF works in more than 45 countries and serves 2.6 million patients — providing free, life-saving HIV/AIDS drug treatment. It has outposts in such places as Mexico, India, South Africa, and the United States, and its clientele is often poor and, in some way, discarded by mainstream society. AHF, for example, has HIV prevention and testing programs for sex workers in Cambodia; operates clinics in underserved areas all over Africa; and cares for LGBTQ+ patients throughout the world.
Founded in 1987, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, AHF initially operated hospices for terminally ill AIDS patients — L.A. politicians weren’t helping them, so AHF decided they would. Thirty years later, as a response to L.A.’s catastrophic homelessness crisis, AHF returned to its roots as a housing provider. It bought single-room occupancy hotels in the Los Angeles area, renovated them, and then offered stable, very affordable housing for low-income and unhoused residents. With homeless deaths steadily rising in L.A., AHF wanted to help people get off the streets as quickly as possible.
At the same time, AHF’s housing advocacy division, Housing Is A Human Right, pushed politicians to build more affordable and homeless housing and to strengthen tenant protections, including rent regulations. Working on the frontlines of the homelessness crisis, AHF could plainly see that unfair, sky-high rents were forcing all kinds of people, including seniors and working-class families, out of their homes.
Since 2018, AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Housing Is A Human Right have worked to repeal or reform statewide rent control restrictions in California through three ballot measures: Prop 10 in 2018; Prop 21 in 2020; and Prop 33 in 2024. For each one, Big Real Estate spent tens of millions in campaign cash to roll out a massive misinformation campaign that blanketed the state with misleading TV and radio ads, aiming to trick and confuse voters. The strategy worked: Californians shot down all the measures, even though they initially supported them by wide margins.
In addition to Yes on Prop 33 and No on Prop 34, I worked on the Yes on Prop 10 and Yes on Prop 21 campaigns. For all of them, AHF and Housing Is A Human Right were joined by an impressive coalition of housing justice groups, labor unions, social justice organizations, and civic leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Maxine Waters, and labor and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta — a kind of holy trinity among progressives.
AHF, labor unions, and activists went to the ballot because state politicians repeatedly refused to repeal or even reform the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act — a 1995 law, pushed by the real estate industry, that created statewide rent control restrictions in California.
Over the decades, the law has harmed tenants in multiple ways, allowing predatory landlords to charge outrageous rents, which fueled the housing affordability and homelessness crises. A recent UC San Francisco study, for example, found that sky-high rents was the overwhelming reason why people were shoved out of their homes.
With homelessness worsening in California, and with Eviction Lab finding that unaffordable rents are tied to higher mortality rates, AHF and other activists believed the repeal of Costa-Hawkins, through Prop 33, was needed more than ever. The initiative was simple: statewide rent control restrictions would end, allowing cities to approve new rent regulations.
Billions of dollars in revenue, if not trillions, were at stake for corporate landlords — such as Essex Property Trust, led by CEO Angela Kleiman; Equity Residential, led by CEO Mark Parrell; and AvalonBay Communities, led by CEO Benjamin Schall. If a majority of Californians voted “yes” on Prop 33, rent regulations would likely expand, stopping Big Real Estate from charging higher and higher rents year after year.
In addition, a successful rent control movement in California would inspire activists in other states, motivating them to try to repeal their own rent control bans — more than 30 states have rent control restrictions. Corporate landlords, many of whom operate across the country, didn’t want that.
Corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association, led by CEO Tom Bannon, tried to frame Prop 33 as a wrong-headed solution for the housing affordability crisis because it would stop housing construction. It was an old, anti-rent control argument that the real estate industry had been rolling out for decades. But a group of 32 top economists pointed out, in a 2023 letter to President Joe Biden, that Big Real Estate’s anti-rent control defense was outdated and flat-out wrong.
The truth of the matter is that corporate landlords never cared about lowering rents — the loss of outsized profits, all over the United States, was their overriding concern.
The greed motive to kill Prop 33 was clear to see, but the mainstream media almost never mentioned it. Instead, reporters just repeated the corporate landlords’ flawed, and outworn, anti-rent control arguments with little, if any, critical analysis.
At the same time, corporate landlords, whose top executives sit on the California Apartment Association’s board of directors and call the shots at the CAA, were determined to silence one of their biggest enemies: AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
AHF was the main financial backer for Prop 10, Prop 21, and Prop 33. So corporate landlords decided to stop AHF’s pro-rent control work by pushing forward Prop 34, which would knee-cap the nonprofit’s ability to use money for housing advocacy in California.
Nearly every major newspaper in California condemned Prop 34. The San Francisco Chronicle called the measure “cheap political gamesmanship that doesn’t belong on the ballot.” The Bay Area News Group Editorial Board wrote that Prop 34 was “an abusive use of the state’s initiative system to silence a political opponent.” And the Los Angeles Times urged voters to “emphatically reject Proposition 34 and send the message that they will not tolerate such a weaponization of the state’s citizen initiative process.”
In May 2023, AHF announced it had collected more than 800,000 signatures to place the Justice for Renters Act, later known as Prop 33, on the November 2024 ballot. A few months later, in September 2023, the CAA said in a press release that it was “ramping up” campaigns to not only stop the Justice for Renters Act, but to also pass the Protect Patients Now Act, later known as Prop 34. Corporate landlords and the CAA were moving swiftly into action, telling real estate insiders that the CAA “has hired a cadre of seasoned pollsters, campaign consultants, legal advisors, and media relations specialists.”
Corporate landlords financed that ramp up through a shady, high-stakes shell game.
First, they delivered tens of millions of dollars to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee. Then, the CAA moved that cash to Californians for Responsible Housing and Protect Patients Now, the CAA’s official No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34 committees, respectively. So if one looked at the committees’ filings at the California Secretary of State website, it appeared as if the California Apartment Association was financing No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34, not corporate landlords.
Tricky.
Campaign filings for Californians for Responsible Housing and Protect Patients Now show that corporate landlords’ millions bought a small army of at least 21 consultants of one kind or another: DeBoo Communications, run by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff Jim DeBoo; Forward Observer, a consulting firm founded by longtime Republican operative Joe Rodota; Bearstar Strategies, run by Newsom insider Ace Smith; and, among others, Click Strategies, operated by yet another Newsom insider named Nathan Click.
But with their millions, corporate landlords weren’t just hiring campaigns consultants and media relations specialists. With the help of the CAA, Big Real Estate went on a multi-million-dollar shopping spree for political favors that would have even made Boss Tweed blush.
Corporate landlords and the CAA carry out shell games
To easily spread around cash to politicians and to finance No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34 and to do it all on the sly, corporate landlords sent prodigious amounts of money to three of the four California Apartment Association political committees: the CAA Independent Expenditure Committee, the CAA Political Action Committee, and the CAA Issues Committee.
As mentioned before, the CAA Issues Committee financed No on Prop 33: Californians for Responsible Housing and Yes on Prop 34: Protect Patients Now. By Election Day, the CAA Issues Committee had raised an eye-popping amount of cash: $135,875,365, according to state filings. Just as astounding, out of the committee’s 355 contributors, a group of only 68 corporate landlords delivered a total of $131,765,298 — or 97 percent of all campaign cash sent to the CAA Issues Committee.
Corporate landlords are generally defined as landlords that use corporate structures, such as LPs, LLCs, and real estate investment trusts. The city of Los Angeles defines “small” or “mom-and-pop” landlords as one who owns four rental units or less.
Those 68 corporate landlords, who contributed at least $100,000 to the CAA Issues Committee between 2023 and 2024, included the largest apartment owners in the nation: Equity Residential, AvalonBay Communities, Essex Property Trust, Camden Property Trust, GID, UDR, MG Properties, Greystar, AIR Communities, and The Related Companies.
In addition, Blackstone Group, which owns AIR Communities and was singled out by experts at the United Nations for fueling the global housing affordability crisis, delivered $2 million to the CAA Issues Committee.
Blackstone is helmed by CEO Stephen Schwarzman, the multi-billionaire who owns mansions in East Hampton and Palm Beach as well as a lavish, 2,500-acre estate in South West England called Conholt Park. Using profits he made by charging sky-high rents, Schwarzman pumped millions of dollars into the restoration of his 17th century home, which recently landed him in the middle of an international controversy.
While his neighbors had to abide by rules to conserve water during a serious drought, Schwarzman hired dozens of water-storage trucks to fill a newly excavated lake at his posh estate. Reporters from around the world took him to task, and Schwarzman was eventually barred from carrying out his unseemly, even arrogant, project.
Among the hundreds of contributions to the CAA Issues Committee, there was one that was highly suspicious.
It involved a $100,000 check, delivered on October 21, 2024, by an entity called “Multiple Multi-Family Operations,” based in Carlsbad, California. A Google search doesn’t show a company in Carlsbad by that name. Neither does a business search at the California Secretary of State website. Some corporate landlord was trying to pull a fast one, most probably, by attaching a fake name to the $100,000 contribution.
Such crookedness is hardly surprising.
While there are undoubtedly solid citizens within the real estate industry, it is also plagued by fraudsters, ponzi-scheme artists, slumlords, corrupt political contributors, and, more than once, real estate hot-shots who hired hitmen to murder people. Just buy a subscription to The Real Deal, the real estate trade magazine, and you’ll find those offenders in its monthly scandal column, “Dirty Deeds.” Atrocious, illegal behavior, in other words, is an ever-present strand in the real estate industry’s DNA. It’s a sharp contrast to AHF’s life-saving work.
There’s also the RealPage price-fixing scandal uncovered by ProPublica. Reporter Heather Vogell found that a cartel of corporate landlords, including CAA Issues Committee contributors Essex Property Trust, Equity Residential, Greystar, UDR, and Camden Property Trust, used a RealPage software program to collude and wildly inflate rents in cities across the country. In response, tenants in California and throughout the country slapped RealPage and the cartel with numerous antitrust lawsuits — the Department of Justice also filed one against RealPage and a group of corporate landlords.
Taken altogether, that’s the kind of unscrupulous gang that was pulling the strings to kill Prop 33 and pass Prop 34.
With that in mind, here are the top 15 contributors to the CAA Issues Committee:
Essex Property Trust: $32,025,000
Equity Residential: $22,318,500
AvalonBay Communities: $20,134,000
Prometheus Real Estate Group: $7,718,000
UDR: $5,956,310
Prime Administration: $4,089,300
R & V Management: $3,435,150
Spieker Companies: $2,629,499
Sequoia Equities: $2,338,252
Jackson Square Properties: $2,186,350
Blackstone Group: $2,000,000
AIR Communities (owned by Blackstone Group): $1,884,975
Robert Larson, founder of Acacia Capital: $1,599,500
Woodmont Real Estate Services (a corporate real estate management firm): $1,576,700
Shea Homes and affiliated entities: $1,560,000
Just those 15 companies shelled out $111,451,536 — or 82 percent — of all money raised by the CAA Issues Committee. Astonishing numbers.
Many of the same 68 corporate landlords that contributed to the CAA Issues Committee also sent checks to the CAA Political Action Committee or the CAA Independent Expenditure Committee.
For the CAA Political Action Committee, 29 of the 68 corporate landlords delivered a total of $283,265 in 2023 and 2024. Those contributors include Related Management Company, Shea Homes, Woodmont Real Estate Services, Sequoia Entities, and THR Property Management, a subsidiary of Invitation Homes, the nation’s largest landlord of single-family home rentals.
(THR Property Management/Invitation Homes sent $700,000 to the CAA Issues Committee — and Invitation Homes was caught in a major scandal, in 2024, when the corporate landlord agreed to an incredible $48-million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for “unlawful behavior against renters.”)
For the CAA Independent Expenditure Committee, 15 of the 68 corporate landlords shelled out a total of $2,457,720 in 2023 and 2024. The CAA Independent Expenditure Committee was where many real estate heavyweights, including scandal-plagued corporate landlords Essex Property Trust, Equity Residential, Greystar, UDR, and Camden Property Trust, sent their cash. Essex Property Trust and Equity Residential were the top two contributors, shelling out $947,403 and $625,115, respectively.
This is nothing new.
For years, Essex Property Trust, Equity Residential, AvalonBay Communities, Spieker Companies, and many other landlords have delivered millions in contributions to at least one of the California Apartment Association’s four political committees. What was the money used for? As my special report revealed in 2021, to buy influence and favors by sending campaign contributions, through a CAA committee, to state and local politicians in 51 out of 58 counties in California.
It’s an important point. The politicians weren’t really taking the CAA’s money — the California Apartment Association was just a middleman. In the end, elected leaders were accepting campaign cash from landlords. It happened again with Prop 33 and Prop 34.
Big Real Estate buys favors — and funds a political trick?
Eager to buy favors to stop Prop 33, the California Apartment Association and corporate landlords sent campaign cash to two political powerhouses: Democrats Gavin Newsom and Toni Atkins.
In February 2024, Gov. Newsom’s Yes on Prop 1 ballot measure committee received a total of $350,000 from the CAA Issues Committee. Between April 2023 and February 2024, State Sen. Atkins’s California Works ballot measure committee raked in a total of $410,000 from the CAA Issues Committee and the CAA Political Action Committee. Newsom and Atkins actively opposed Prop 33.
But that wasn’t the only cash that Atkins took from Big Real Estate.
Between April 2014 and April 2022, she had banked a total of $152,700 from corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association for her campaign and ballot measure committees. That makes for a grand total of $562,700.
After receiving that money, Atkins had a chat with Politico for a May 15, 2024, article, saying she opposed Prop 33 and describing the measure “as deceptive as it is dangerous.” She added, “Conspiring with wealthy cities to undermine vital state housing laws is bad enough. Lying to voters about it is even worse.”
Neither Atkins nor Politico mentioned that the state senator had raked in mountains of political money from corporate landlords and the CAA over the years, and her remarks were inaccurate, to say the least.
In the same Politico article, State Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, another Democrat, supported Atkins, saying Prop 33 “will end housing production in California full stop.”
Neither Wicks nor Politico said that she was financially backed by corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association. Between 2018 and 2023, Wicks banked a total of $13,900 from the CAA Political Action Committee, and the California Apartment Association Independent Expenditure Committee spent $100,000 in support of her 2018 assembly run.
And a little more than a month after the Politico article, on June 28, Wicks took $5,500 from the California Apartment Association Political Action Committee for her 2024 state assembly campaign. Then, on September 3, 2024, Wicks grabbed $10,000 from the CAA for her ballot measure committee.
It should be pointed out that politicians’ ballot measure committees, in California, can be used as a kind of slush fund to pay for credit cards, so-called “fundraising events,” travel, meals, entertainment, and other expenses.
For example, according to 2024 state filings, State Sen. Toni Atkins used her ballot measure committee, California Works, to pay Anheuser-Busch Companies $151,875 for “fundraising events.” A deeper look into that payment shows that $2,500 was spent for “food & beverage” at The Cosmopolitan, a luxury hotel in Las Vegas; $650 for a “concert” at The Cosmopolitan; $500 for “gifting” at Three World Trade Center in New York City; $7,000 for “Super Bowl tickets” paid to the National Football League; $4,200 for “tailgate experience” in New York City; $2,500 for “food & beverage” at Park MGM, another luxury hotel in Las Vegas; and $1,050 for “lodging” at Park MGM.
In the meantime, while Atkins was living large, Eviction Lab, the prestigious research institute at Princeton University, found that unaffordable rents are linked to higher mortality rates.
Atkins’s ridiculous charge that the Yes on Prop 33 campaign was conspiring with wealthy cities was referring to a Politico story published on April 2, 2024. The news site reported that Huntington Beach City Councilmember Tony Strickland urged his colleagues to consider backing Prop 33. Strickland, reading a carefully worded, wonky statement at a City Council meeting in March 2024, argued that Prop 33 could be used as a tool to avoid state housing mandates that would “destroy the fabric of our community.”
Strickland’s remarks caught people off guard — many, if not most, Republican officials don’t support rent control. In fact, the No on Prop 33 campaign rolled out a coalition of 23 mayors who opposed Prop 33, and at least 15 of them were Republicans.
Strickland, though, soon backtracked after he took heat from the Orange County Register, which hates rent control. In an April 12 letter to the newspaper, Strickland wrote that he most definitely opposes rent control and Prop 33.
Then Politico, without noting Strickland’s change of tune, published the May article with Atkins and Wicks, reporting that they came out against Prop 33 because of the remarks made by conservative Republican Tony Strickland. Other Democrats voiced similar logic. One example is Catherine Stefani, a Democrat and then-San Francisco supervisor.
In mid-June 2024, 48 Hills, a local news site, reported that Stefani made her case against Prop 33 during a board of supervisors meeting.
“Sup. Catherine Stefani launched a very strange attack on the [measure],” 48 Hills editor Tim Redmond wrote, “saying that it was a Republican plot to stop new housing in California. She insisted that she supports rent control, but said that this would ‘freeze the creation of new housing’ in California.”
Redmond added, “[Stefani] said that a Republican member of the Huntington Beach City Council supports it, and that State Sen. Toni Atkins and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks oppose it.” (Like Politico, Stefani also failed to mention Strickland’s change of heart.)
Why the focus on Strickland, a conservative Republican? By framing Prop 33 as a Republican ballot measure in a state that’s heavily Democratic, Prop 33 could end up losing key support from Democratic voters, who make or break campaigns in California.
Such a political trick is not as crazy as it may seem.
In November 2023, according to a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, 70 percent of registered Democrats supported Prop 33. The California Apartment Association, corporate landlords, and their seasoned campaigns consultants, such as Jim DeBoo and Ace Smith, desperately needed to change that number, but how? They could roll out Democrats who say, to anyone who will listen, that Prop 33 is a Republican-backed measure — and then hold up Tony Strickland as proof.
The No on Prop 33 campaign had another motivation.
Later in May 2024, only days after the Politico article with Atkins and Wicks and the mention of conservative Republican Tony Strickland, the California Democratic Party was holding endorsement meetings in San Diego. Members would vote to oppose or support a number of statewide ballot measures, including Prop 33. Framing Prop 33 as a Republican scheme could help kill an endorsement.
So Atkins, with support from fellow Democrat Buffy Wicks, shared her conspiracy theory with Politico just before the endorsement meetings, but it didn’t work — Prop 33 was officially backed by the California Democratic Party.
Still, it was a strategy worth pursuing, and Stefani then banged the drum about Strickland at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting in June — San Francisco is a politically influential city in California packed with Democrats.
The thing with Stefani was that she needed mounds of cash for her 2024 state assembly race, and corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association delivered it — but in a very backdoor way.
Between February and October 2024, the California Apartment Association Independent Expenditure Committee contributed $650,000 to an obscure political committee known as Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions sponsored by Housing Providers. Its top funders included the California Association of Realtors, the California Apartment Association, and the California Building Industry Association — all of whom opposed Prop 33. With Stefani ranting about Tony Strickland’s connection to Prop 33, Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions (i.e., the CAA, the CAR, and the CBIA) spent a total of $419,192 in support of her state assembly campaign.
Stefani’s campaign also grabbed $5,500 from the California Apartment Association PAC in December 2023, according to state filings.
And a little more than a week after her “bizarre” remarks about Strickland and Prop 33, Stefani’s state assembly campaign accepted another $5,550 from the California Apartment Association PAC on June 28, 2024.
In November 2024, with Big Real Estate’s money, she was elected to the state assembly.
But it’s not only the major contributions to Atkins, Wicks, and Stefani that raise suspicions of a political trick financed by corporate landlords and the CAA — even Tony Strickland grabbed a fistful of cash from corporate landlords.
On June 28, 2024, only three months after Strickland read his wonky, carefully worded statement at the Huntington Beach City Council meeting, the California Apartment Association Political Action Committee delivered $5,500 of the corporate landlords’ money to Strickland’s 2026 state senate campaign.
That’s not all.
In February 2025, Fighting For Our Future, a committee financed by the California Apartment Association, the California Building Industry Association, and the California Association of Realtors, spent $216,722 in independent expenditure money to support Strickland’s run for a state senate seat in a March special election. With Big Real Estate’s backing, he won.
In addition, around the same time that Strickland was urging his colleagues to support Prop 33 in 2024, the California Apartment Association sent two payments to Tyler Diep, a one-time conservative Republican and former California assembly member whose district included Huntington Beach, where Strickland served as a city council member.
The CAA’s No on Prop 33 committee sent $12,500 to TD Strategies, a limited liability company under Diep’s name. TD Strategies received that cash on March 13, 2024 — six days later, on March 19, Strickland made his Prop 33 remarks at the Huntington Beach City Council meeting. Then, on May 2, 2024, TD Strategies received another $12,500 from the CAA’s No on Prop 33 committee. In total, Diep, the former assembly member who served Huntington Beach, raked in $25,000 from corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association.
It makes one seriously wonder if there was a connection between Strickland, Diep, and the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign.
Conspiring with wealthy cities? Toni Atkins won’t want reporters looking into money trails that lead her, Buffy Wicks, Catherine Stefani, Tony Strickland, and Tyler Diep to corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association. A lot of questions will pop up.
As for Gov. Gavin Newsom, he was facing a more difficult time than expected to pass Prop 1, a statewide measure that aimed to fund new mental health treatment facilities and supportive housing for homeless veterans. The vote was taking place on March 5, 2024, and Newsom needed all the cash he could get.
On February 15, only weeks before the election, the California Apartment Association Issues Committee, funded by many of the largest corporate landlords in the country, delivered $150,000 to Newsom’s Prop 1 ballot measure committee. Then on February 28, six days before the March 5 election, corporate landlords and the CAA chipped in again with $200,000.
That last-minute injection of Big Real Estate cash helped: Prop 1 passed by a whisker, and Newsom avoided huge political embarrassment.
Newsom had also taken campaign cash from corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association before 2024. In 2018, Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign raked in $29,200 from the California Apartment Association PAC. For his re-election bid, in 2022, Newsom accepted $32,400 from the CAA PAC.
During the summer of 2024, Newsom was tight-lipped about where he stood on Prop 33. But by early fall, the governor officially endorsed the No on Prop 33 campaign, standing with corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association. He even allowed himself to be featured in mailers and in a No on Prop 33 TV ad that was paid by the California Apartment Association.
After Prop 33 lost in November 2024, Politico wrote that Newsom emerged as the “central figure” for the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign. Yes on Prop 33 Policy Director Susie Shannon laid the defeat squarely at Newsom’s feet: “The governor killed rent control in California,” she told Politico.
So the corporate landlords and California Apartment Association’s long-time investment in Newsom paid off: with statewide rent control restrictions still in place, corporate landlords could continue to price gouge tenants, raking in billions in revenue.
But Newsom, Atkins, Wicks, and Stefani weren’t the only Democrats taking campaign cash from Big Real Estate.
On November 22, 2023, the California Apartment Association PAC contributed $50,000 to State Assemblymember Evan Low’s ballot measure committee. Before that, in June 2023, Low’s 2024 state assembly committee accepted $5,500 from the CAA PAC. In 2024, Low, a Democrat educated at Harvard University, turned into a key supporter of Prop 34, the measure to silence AHF’s housing advocacy work.
And like Newsom and Atkins, among others, Low had long taken campaign cash from corporate landlords through the California Apartment Association. Between 2010 and 2023, Low’s campaign committees received a total of $43,400 from the CAA. Between 2019 and 2023, Low’s ballot measure committee raked in $70,000 from the CAA. That adds up to $113,400 — no small thing.
The expenditures for Low’s ballot measure committee also make for interesting reading.
In 2016, a couple of years after he was first elected to the state assembly, Low made payments of $5,425, $3,661.88, and $1,356.25 to R. Douglas Custom Clothier, a bespoke tailor in Sacramento that only takes on new customers by appointment and makes custom shoes, custom suits, custom tuxedos, custom shirts, and even custom jeans. For some reason, Low described those expenses as “fundraising events.”
Between 2017 and 2023, Low was also constantly paying off credit cards through his ballot measure committee. Except for one payment in 2018, no description was given — such as gifting or Super Bowl tickets — other than “credit card payment.” And on November 21, 2023, just a day before he grabbed $50,000 from the California Apartment Association PAC, Low paid $32,665.35 to Live Nation Worldwide, a leading live entertainment company. That payment was also described as “fundraising events.”
Democratic clubs also took cash from corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association.
The San Francisco Eastern Neighborhoods Democratic Club and the United Democratic Club took $1,250 and $5,000, respectively, from No on Prop 33: Californians for Responsible Housing sponsored by the California Apartment Association. SF Eastern Neighborhoods Democratic Club was a No on Prop 33 endorser, and the United Democratic Club backed Yes on Prop 34. The SF Eastern Neighborhoods Democratic Club and United Democratic Club also took $1,250 and $5,000, respectively, from the CAA’s Yes on Prop 34 committee.
Additionally, Southern California Armenian Democrats accepted $1,500 from the California Apartment Association Political Action Committee — and that club endorsed Yes on Prop 34.
Other groups got a piece of the action.
The BizFed PAC of the Los Angeles County Business Federation took $20,000 from the CAA Political Action Committee — and the L.A. County Business Federation endorsed No on Prop 33. The L.A. Jobs PAC of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce grabbed $10,000 from the CAA Political Action Committee — and the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce endorsed No on Prop 33. The California Business PAC sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce received $105,000 from the California Apartment Association Issues Committee — and the California Chamber of Commerce endorsed No on Prop 33 and backed Yes on Prop 34.
The Central City Association PAC accepted $22,000 from the CAA Political Action Committee — and the Central City Association of Los Angeles endorsed No on Prop 33. The Asian Business Association Candidate PAC raked in $30,000 from the CAA Political Action Committee — and the Asian Business Association PAC endorsed No on Prop 33. The Fresno Chamber of Commerce PAC received $500 from the CAA Political Action Committee — and the Fresno Chamber of Commerce supported No on Prop 33.
The NAACP California-Hawaii State Conference PAC grabbed $25,000 from the CAA’s No on Prop 33 committee and another $25,000 from Yes on Prop 34 sponsored by the California Apartment Association. The NAACP California-Hawaii State Conference endorsed both No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34.
For all those groups, Prop 33 and Prop 34 made for lucrative business — while the housing affordability crisis only worsened, forcing college students to sleep in their cars, pushing seniors into the streets, and putting working-class tenants in the dangerous position of choosing between paying the rent or eating.
Many other state and local politicians grabbed campaign cash from corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association and endorsed the No on Prop 33 campaign.
Just to name a few, State Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, State Assemblymember Juan Carrillo, Alisa Viejo Mayor Mike Munzing, Costa Mesa Mayor John Stephens, Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, Fullerton Mayor Nick Dunlap, Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, and Yorba Linda Mayor Tara Campbell took corporate-landlord money, through the CAA, and opposed Prop 33.
Munzing, Stephens, Singh-Allen, Dyer, Dunlap, Lock Dawson, Gloria, Mahan, and Campbell were among the 23 politicians that signed onto the No on Prop 33’s mayoral coalition.
In total, the California Apartment Association and corporate landlords delivered campaign cash, one way or another, to at least 46 elected officials and civic groups who endorsed No on Prop 33 or Yes on Prop 34 or both.
Big Real Estate left nothing to chance, shelling out contributions to whoever they could in the country’s most populous state.
That brings up another point. The notion, pushed by pundits and political insiders of one stripe or another, that California is the progressive capital of the United States is far from accurate. In fact, it’s misleading, with no grasp of what’s really happening inside the dark corridors and back rooms of power.
Instead, one can easily make the case, after going over to the California Secretary of State website and looking up campaign contributions from Big Real Estate, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Tech, and other major industries, that California may actually be the national headquarters of Corporate Democrats. But maybe pundits and political insiders already understand how things work in California — and don’t want voters to know.
YIMBYs abandon the housing justice movement
For Prop 33, corporate landlords lured two groups into their “no” campaign that had evaded them in the past: California YIMBY and YIMBY Action. They’re not only the most prominent YIMBY organizations in California, but also in the United States — both influence YIMBYs all over the country, and YIMBY Action helps organize them.
YIMBY stands for “Yes In My Back Yard,” and the movement, of sorts, took hold in the Bay Area around 2016. Most of the original YIMBYs were youngish, usually white, often male, and often aggressive — and many of them worked in the tech industry making good money. When they couldn’t find suitable housing in San Francisco, they became outraged and started pushing an agenda of flooding the market with luxury apartments, which would give them the housing they wanted.
YIMBYs also made the case that building lots of high-end units would eventually lower rent prices for the poor and middle and working class. It’s a highly controversial argument that even urban planning guru Richard Florida thought was bogus.
“The markets - and neighborhoods - for luxury and affordable housing are very different,” he wrote in 2019, “and it is unlikely that any increases in high-end supply would trickle down to less advantaged groups.”
In a 2016 report, Zillow, the real estate site, found “only a small portion” of newly built apartments are affordable for moderate- and low-incomes tenants; “most new apartment construction is at the top of the market, where luxury units command top prices from wealthy renters;” and there was a dire need for the production of more affordable housing.
“There’s a growing divide in the rental market right now,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell. “Very high demand at the low end of the market is being met with more supply at the high end, an imbalance that will only contribute to growing affordability concerns for all renters.”
She added: “We’re simply not building enough at the bottom and middle of the rental market to keep up with demand. As a result, these segments are becoming very competitive, as both new renters look to find their first place and existing renters get shut out of homeownership because of extremely limited for-sale inventory. Apartment construction at the low end needs to start ramping up, and soon, in order to see real improvement.” (Over the past nine years, Gudell’s concerns have been proven correct.)
So housing justice activists weren’t buying the YIMBYs’ reasoning. They believed YIMBYs were only looking out for themselves, especially since more luxury apartments in working-class neighborhoods would obviously trigger gentrification and displacement, pushing tenants out of their longtime communities.
The YIMBY agenda became widely known as a “trickle-down” solution for the housing affordability crisis, which put no emphasis on building, first and foremost, affordable housing for the poor and middle- and working-class tenants. The people hit hardest by sky-high rents.
As a result, YIMBYs constantly clashed with housing justice groups, even sending a 77-year-old Asian woman to the hospital, in 2018, after they mixed it up with activists outside San Francisco City Hall for opposing one of YIMBYs’ pro-gentrification, trickle-down land-use bills. Soon after that melee, the president of the Chinatown-based Community Tenants Association told the San Francisco Examiner that YIMBYs “have no heart.”
A month later, Anya Lawler, a policy advocate for the Western Center on Law & Poverty, told the Los Angeles Times, “The YIMBY movement has a white privilege problem. I don’t think they recognize it. They don’t understand poverty. They don’t understand what that’s like, who our clients really are and what their lived experience is.”
The YIMBYs’ agenda, however, matched up perfectly with Big Real Estate’s “build, build, build” strategy, which has been used for decades to kill rent control and other tenant protections — the real estate industry’s argument, which housing justice activists and top economists have said is outdated and wrong, is that politicians can’t pass any kind of legislation that will harm housing production.
(While the relationship between YIMBYs and housing justice activists has always been strained, if not outright hostile, YIMBYs have gotten along beautifully with the real estate industry. In fact, over the past nine years, they’ve routinely lobbied local politicians to approve any kind of luxury-housing project that came along, regardless of negative impacts on middle- and working-class communities and regardless of the lack of affordable units. They’ve also said next to nothing about the predatory business practices of corporate landlords, as if that has nothing to do with the housing affordability crisis. YIMBYs, for example, were virtually silent about the RealPage scandal, in which corporate landlords were essentially colluding and rigging the system so they could keep charging higher and higher rents — no matter what was happening in the rental housing market. Today, the YIMBY movement is more like an industry, and definitely a branch of the real estate and tech industries. Big Tech donors are always sending cash to California YIMBY’s political committee, and, during the Prop 33 battle, the real estate industry sponsored a swanky “YIMBY Prom” hosted by YIMBY Action — while housing justice activists were battling corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association. Telling. The YIMBY movement has also become a lucrative gig for certain people. Years ago, for example, California YIMBY CEO Brian Hanlon’s ambition was to ultimately work at a natural wine bar. But by 2022, according to the organization’s tax filing, he was making a spiffy $411,87 — a substantial nut that he probably never imagined, back in the day, as an aspiring wine steward.)
But, California YIMBY and YIMBY Action stayed neutral for Prop 10 in 2018 and Prop 21 in 2020 — those measures, similar to Prop 33, sought to end statewide rent control restrictions. This time around, California YIMBY and YIMBY Action, led by Executive Director Laura Foote, obviously made some political calculations — and decided, in 2024, that they would abandon the housing justice movement to stand with Essex Property Trust, Equity Residential, Blackstone Group, and the other corporate landlords that were financing the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign. After all, the real estate industry was throwing them a prom.
In terms of politics, it was a bold, possibly unwise, move.
Ever since California YIMBY tried to push through two, statewide land-use bills that would have fueled gentrification and displacement in working-class neighborhoods throughout California, and mixed it up with activists on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, the housing justice movement totally and completely distrusted YIMBY groups.
Both those bills were defeated, in 2018 and 2020, largely because California YIMBY, founded and funded by Big Tech executives, and other YIMBY groups came off as corporate shills who cared little about the plight of working-class Californians, especially those of color.
After the second bill died, California YIMBY and YIMBY Action probably came to the heavy conclusion that they needed to overhaul their entire image to pass anything in California — and they went about recasting themselves as true-blue “progressives.”
California YIMBY and YIMBY Action continued to push the same pro-gentrification, trickle-down agenda as the real estate industry, but their political makeover, over the past few years, has been working to a certain degree. By officially opposing Prop 33, California YIMBY and YIMBY Action were jeopardizing all that public-relations work.
Especially since the Yes on Prop 33 campaign was backed by a broad coalition of housing justice groups, labor unions, social justice organizations, and the progressive holy trinity of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Maxine Waters, and labor and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta. California YIMBY and YIMBY Action, in real ways, were going against them.
But by joining up with corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association, in 2024, California YIMBY and YIMBY Action, as well another leading YIMBY group called Abundant Housing LA, probably understood that they would be catapulted into the political big-time — helping them to forge more relationships with state politicians, to possibly pass more state legislation, and to grab more political power for the YIMBY movement. Those were all things that YIMBY leaders had craved for years. California YIMBY, YIMBY Action, and Abundant Housing LA endorsed the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign.
Not only did those top YIMBY groups publicly oppose Prop 33, but they also wrote an “open letter” to AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the sponsor of the Yes on Prop 33 campaign, that appeared as an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times. Paid by the California Apartment Association, the letter used talking points that came straight from the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign, including the ever-present, yet flawed argument that rent control would stop housing production.
The California Apartment Association and corporate landlords, though, didn’t deliver massive amounts of campaign cash directly to the California YIMBY Victory Fund or YIMBY Action or the Abundant Housing LA PAC, although the CAA’s No on Prop 33 committee sent $10,000 to San Francisco YIMBY.
And AvalonBay Communities, The Related Companies, and Prometheus Real Estate Group — all major contributors to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee, which financed No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34 — were also generous.
They shelled out cash to sponsor YIMBY Action’s “YIMBY Prom” at the upscale Terra Gallery in San Francisco only weeks before Election Day. (San Francisco Mayor London Breed and State Sen. Scott Wiener were coronated YIMBY queen and king.)
But on the whole, often through complicated shell games, the CAA and corporate landlords threw money at politicians endorsed by those specific YIMBY groups. YIMBYs would have wanted something for their No on Prop 33 endorsements, especially with them running the risk of blowing up their carefully constructed “progressive” image, so that kind of arrangement may have been made.
In several cases, the California Apartment Association Issues Committee contributed to the ballot measure committee of a politician endorsed by California YIMBY or YIMBY Action or Abundant Housing LA. And for a few others, the California Apartment Association Independent Expenditure Committee delivered cash to a political committee that backed a specific YIMBY-endorsed candidate, such as Health Care and Housing Providers Supporting Marc Berman for Assembly.
But, in most cases, the CAA Independent Expenditure Committee, which was financed by such heavyweights as Essex Property Trust, Equity Residential, and AvalonBay Communities, sent big money to little-known political committees that spent cash on candidates endorsed by California YIMBY or YIMBY Action or Abundant Housing LA.
For example, Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions received a total of $650,000 from the CAA’s Independent Expenditure Committee, and Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions spent money in support of five candidates that were endorsed by California YIMBY or YIMBY Action or both.
Such as Colin Parent, a La Mesa City Council member who was running for the state assembly. He was backed by California YIMBY and YIMBY Action, and he endorsed No on Prop 33. Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions, which, as mentioned before, is a political committee funded by the CAA, the California Association of Realtors, and the California Building Industry Association, spent $735,534 in support of Parent.
And, of course, there was Catherine Stefani of San Francisco. As mentioned earlier, Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions spent $419,192 in support of her successful state assembly run. She was endorsed by California YIMBY and YIMBY Action. And while she vocally opposed a Yes on Prop 33 resolution brought up by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (ranting about Tony Strickland), Stefani was absent for the official vote. Her refusal to go on the record was just as good as standing arm in arm with the CAA and corporate landlords.
The California Apartment Association Independent Expenditure Committee sent corporate-landlord money to other obscure political committees, such as Keep California Golden, Tomorrow California PAC, JobsPAC, Golden State Leadership Fund PAC, A Pipeline Project, and Golden State Voices United. (Along with other corporate entities, the California Association of Realtors and California Building Industry Association also funded many of the above committees.) Keep California Golden and the others then spent campaign cash in support of candidates that were endorsed by California YIMBY or YIMBY Action or Abundant Housing LA.
One of the biggest winners of these shell games was Jesse Arreguin, a self-described “progressive” Democrat and mayor of Berkeley who was seeking a seat in the state senate. Both California YIMBY and YIMBY Action endorsed Arreguin, and Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions, Keep California Golden, Tomorrow California PAC, and JobsPAC spent an enormous total of $979,457 in support Arreguin’s run. He won — in a landslide.
Interestingly, when SiliconValley.com reached out to Arreguin to ask where he stood on Prop 33, he didn’t respond.
In total, at least 20 candidates endorsed by California YIMBY, YIMBY Action, or Abundant Housing LA benefited from corporate landlords’ campaign cash distributed by the California Apartment Association. And whenever a YIMBY-endorsed, Big Real Estate-financed candidate won, the YIMBY movement, including California YIMBY and YIMBY Action, only grew more powerful.
Then after Prop 33, in 2025, California YIMBY and YIMBY Action teamed up with the California Apartment Association and corporate landlords to successfully delay the vote of a state bill that would have strengthened tenant rights, including lowering the rent increase cap of the Tenant Protections Act of 2019. The CAA, in fact, publicly thanked California YIMBY and YIMBY Action for sidetracking the pro-tenant legislation. For activists, California YIMBY and YIMBY Action’s decision to again work with corporate landlords to kill tenant protections sent a clear message to the housing justice movement and the public at large: far from being progressives, YIMBYs were corporate foot soldiers for Big Real Estate.
Corporate landlords and the CAA go local
While spending big to kill Prop 33 and pass Prop 34, corporate landlords and the CAA were also shelling out significant cash to influence local elections, which is disturbing. A tenant rights group or neighborhood organization cannot, in any way, match Big Real Estate’s billions. Even a sudden injection of $5,000 into a local race that’s coming down to the wire can tilt things in favor of whoever or whatever corporate landlords want to see elected, approved, or stopped.
With the California Apartment Association operating more than a dozen field offices around the state, there’s also a good chance that the CAA and corporate landlords negotiate back-room deals with local politicians to get whatever each side wants. It will almost always involve money.
The CAA, for example, may want to stop a handful of elected officials in a given city from passing rent control or some other tenant protection that messes with corporate landlords’ ability to price gouge renters. When approached, the politicians say they’re willing to vote against the proposal, but they want the CAA and corporate landlords to lay out some cash to stop or pass something that’s on their political agenda — and possibly send contributions to their own campaigns.
It won’t cost all that much, compared to the billions that they have at their disposal, so the CAA and corporate landlords make the deal: the politicians promise to vote “no” on an upcoming rent control ordinance while the CAA and corporate landlords help fund a measure that builds a few playgrounds. Everyone is happy, except for someone’s grandmother who can’t afford another outrageous rent hike, and may end up living out of her old Ford Fusion.
One real-life example is El Cerrito in Northern California.
In May 2019, the City Council passed a number of tenant protections, including just cause eviction. The California Apartment Association and its corporate landlord bosses hated the tenant-rights package, even though activists said it was very watered down. So the CAA started a signature-gathering effort to place a measure on the local ballot to end the protections. When the CAA got the necessary amount of signatures, the City Council quickly backed down, repealing its own work in August 2019.
But something didn’t seem right. Why did the City Council reverse itself in just a few months? Why didn’t the politicians show just a bit of backbone? To outside observers, it seemed weird — even suspicious. So like with anything involving the California Apartment Association, one just needs to look at the money trail for possible answers.
A pet project, at the time, for the City Council was Yes on H for El Cerrito Parks & Pools. As one can guess, Measure H would fund the city’s parks and recreational facilities — through a parcel tax. The City Council placed Measure H on the November 2019 ballot, but, like any initiative, it needed cash to get over the line. In October 2019, only a few weeks before Election Day, the California Apartment Association Issues Committee delivered two contributions totaling $3,200 to Yes on H for El Cerrito Parks & Pools.
It may not seem like much, but the City Council only needed to grab a few thousand votes. One way or another, $3,200 would come in handy, even if it was needed to throw an epic victory party with an open bar. On November 5, 2019, Measure H was passed with 78 percent of the vote. The City Council won — with the CAA’s help.
Who knows exactly what happened behind the scenes at El Cerrito City Hall, but the real estate industry usually hates parcel-tax measures. Also, the CAA and corporate landlords were ready to go to war with the El Cerrito City Council. But, for some reason, the CAA and corporate landlords got over those things — and forked over $3,200 for the parcel-tax measure, which was backed by the City Council. The same City Council that repealed its watered-down tenant protections within three, quick months.
A month after the election, in December 2019, the California Apartment Association PAC also delivered a $1,000 contribution to El Cerrito City Councilmember Gabriel Quinto.
If the CAA and El Cerrito politicians say it’s all merely a coincidence and nothing to look into further, then they clearly don’t think much of the public’s intelligence.
In 2024, the California Apartment Association and corporate landlords were at it again, influencing local elections in National City, Richmond, San Mateo, Larkspur, Fairfax, and Santa Ana.
The National City election was fascinating because this time the CAA Issues Committee delivered cash — $2,500 — to kill a parcel-tax ballot measure that would generate money to repair streets and improve parks. It’s essentially the opposite of what took place in El Cerrito. Guess what happened? The corporate landlords won, with Measure R losing by 33 percentage points. Only 15,00 people voted in that contest, so Big Real Estate didn’t need to shell out vast sums for that victory.
The CAA and corporate landlords were triumphant in other local races.
In Richmond, the California Apartment Association Issues Committee delivered $1,000 to Yes on Measure J, which was an election reform initiative. The measure passed — and the corporate landlords won.
In San Mateo, the CAA Issues Committee sent $500 to Yes on Measure T, which increased building density for developers. CAA-connected corporate landlords Sares Regis Group and Prometheus Real Estate Group also delivered $10,000 and $25,000, respectively. The measure passed — and the corporate landlords won.
(Nicole Fernandez, a YIMBY Action-endorsed candidate, also won that night, taking a seat on the San Mateo City Council. Golden State Voices United, one of those obscure political committees that the California Apartment Association Independent Expenditure Committee funneled money into, spent $1,125.74 in support of Fernandez. As it happened, she backed Measure T.)
In Larkspur, the California Apartment Association Issues Committee shelled out a total of $45,000 to the No on Measure K campaign to stop a pro-rent control initiative. Measure K was defeated — and the corporate landlords won.
In Fairfax, the California Apartment Association Issues Committee handed over a total of $17,500 to the Committee to Support the Fairfax Act, which sought to repeal existing rent control and just cause eviction ordinances through a ballot measure. Somehow, the CAA and its allies convinced Fairfax residents to vote against themselves. The measure was passed — and the corporate landlords won.
But in Santa Ana, things didn’t go so well for corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association. The CAA Issues Committee contributed $25,000 to No on Measure CC. The local initiative aimed to enshrine, in Santa Ana’s charter, the existing rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance, and the CAA and corporate landlords, of course, wanted to kill it. On Election Day, though, voters overwhelmingly passed Measure CC — and the corporate landlords lost.
What it all shows is something that housing justice activists have known for years: corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association will go anywhere in California to kill rent control and other tenant rights to protect their monstrous revenues and squeeze every last cent out of grandparents, working-class families, recent college graduates, and anyone else who rents a home. If corporate landlords can help it, nothing will get in their way of charging higher and higher rents, year after year. Nothing.
Wrap up
It would be easy to write a summary about all the skulduggery that corporate landlords and their front group, the California Apartment Association, carry out in Sacramento and other cities. It would also be easy to say that key Democrats, political organizations, and YIMBY groups betrayed poor and middle- and working-class renters by teaming up with corporate landlords to kill Prop 33. It would be easy to say a lot of things about the deception and treachery of California’s power elite.
But, in the end, it’s California voters who have to face up to the hard fact that they’re constantly being manipulated by powerful politicians and multi-billion-dollar companies who only care about grabbing more power and more money. Anything else Big Real Estate talks about, such as the best way to lower rents, is nonsense — and a deliberate distraction. Does anyone really believe that corporate landlords want to lower rents? Everything they do is geared to jack up rents as high as possible.
Make no mistake about it, and it’s something that this investigation shows time and again, corporate landlords call the shots — and the California Apartment Association, Gov. Gavin Newsom, California YIMBY, and all the others merely implement the corporate landlords’ game plan.
Once Californians come to grips with that reality, and if they’re not happy with the status quo of handing over more than 30 percent of their paychecks to landlords, then they can change things. Californians can make their votes matter when, say, another ballot measure comes up to repeal statewide rent control restrictions or when the CAA and corporate landlords try to kill rent control in a city through an initiative.
Because only rent control and other tenant protections are going to rein in the $10-trillion beast, willing to misinform and confuse voters anywhere in California, that is the real estate industry.
This exposé was originally published at Medium and has since been revised and updated for MacDomhnall’s.