Editor’s Note- Vote Smart is an informational series focused on the upcoming November ballot, and it runs ahead of the Election Day column Mark Your Ballot. Everything on the ballot – propositions, measures and candidates – will be addressed here before being summarized on November 5, 2024.
Proposition 34 is one of those weirdly disguised issues that is not at all what it seems on the surface; why should California pass a law limiting how SOME healthcare providers spend their revenue from a specific program? The measure is an effort by the real estate industry to hamper the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has bankrolled several rent control initiatives, including one on the 2024 ballot.
It’s an anti-rent control prop, but mainly an anti-AIDS Healthcare Foundation prop.
Its true, the AHF has done a shockingly bad job of investing in housing. A lengthy investigation by the Los Angeles Times uncovered “buildings … beset with heating, plumbing, elevator and electricity failures and vermin infestations,” and there are many tales to tell. But passing a law to say how they can or can’t spend their money is severe overreach.
Passing a law to regulate “healthcare providers who have spent over $100 million in any 10-year period on things besides direct patient care and have run multifamily housing,” is a bit like saying ‘We are creating new rules that only apply to green-eyed, left-handed brunettes whose names begin with the letter G.”
The money promoting this is the California Apartment Association, which has a long history of legal battles with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation specific to the AHF support of rent control. According to CAA, rent control will limit housing construction.
Again, the Los Angeles Times offers “AIDS Healthcare argues the measure is unconstitutional because the proposition singles it out for punishment.”
AHF sued to remove Prop. 34 from the ballot but without success.
Voting no on this protects the state from setting a bad precedent on regulating non-profits, rent control and housing.
Judith Martin-Straw
