Skip to main content

RIP Prop 33 😭 What happened?

Why did Prop 33 lose in California? Here are three reasons, although there could be more: 

1) Out of state billionaire real estate special interests, combined with in-state millionaire Landlord orgs, spent over $121,000,000 on telling scary falsehoods to Californians. Like, rent control will cause rents to go up, and affordable housing will disappear. They just needed to cause enough confusion about the meaning of Prop 33 to get the voters – even tenants! – to vote no. 

2) As I explain in a vid on YouTube,* the California Legislative Analyst presented a biased and negative summary of Prop 33 in the Voter Guide. That was sent out to 22M Californians. For many voters, it was the one and only thing they would read about Prop 33. The law requires the Legislative Analyst to suggest the economic impact of a prop for both state and local gov – but only a negative view was given, and only for the state gov – “tens of millions” would be lost in tax revenues, it said. But renters with regulated affordable rents would have more money to spend; hence, a boon to local economies and local govs (see my vid). Although misleading, such a negative report likely resulted 100s 0f 1000s of "no" votes. (I warned Weinstein about this in time to change it, but to no avail.)

3) The organization behind the pro-Prop 33 took a Republican orientation to making their case. They took the rich person’s view of pitying the poor homeless. But to really stimulate renters and Progressive Californians, they should have rallied renters to Fight for their Rights to Affordable Rents. The spokespersons they sent out to the media were nice people, well informed, but not a Fighter among them. The Landlord rep, a guy named Click, could misrepresent Prop 33, and BS the audience with red herrings, and never be confronted by the pro-Prop 33 person.^ Those one minute TV “debates” are on YouTube.

So, Landlords win again. The domination and exploitation that began under Feudalism will continue.


William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

The Political Science Interpretivist

@InterpretivePo1 

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJUZeAbSB28

^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVP2nqEV-ao&t=53s


Comments

  1. William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.November 8, 2024 at 10:52 PM

    Press release says the following, but no details, “Governor Newsom is the main reason that rent control was killed in California," said AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein. "All the polling showed Yes on 33 ahead prior to his becoming the face of the no campaign. Big Real Estate gave him millions over the years, and they called in their chits." https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241106313190/en/Yes-on-33-Fight-for-Justice-for-Renters-Will-Continue

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.November 10, 2024 at 2:16 PM

      Actually, Newsom's popularity hovered around 50% at the time. So his influence probably wasn't all that significant.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Red Roulette, by a Billionaire Chinese Crybaby

Introduction After it all, “I thought that China wasn’t as bad as Americans tended to think.” (182) That’s the conclusion of billionaire Desmond Shum, author of Red Roulette* – his autobiographical account of how he and his wife, Whitney Duan, rose from rags to riches in the go-go years of China’s developmental miracle. Whitney and the Road to Wealth Born in the late 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, both Whitney and Desmond received a normal education as children. She then enrolled in a military university in 1986. (73) As an outstanding student, she obtained employment as an executive’s assistant in “a real estate development company run by China’s military.” (74) At the time, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had numerous business interests, and Whitney started making connections with the elite among them. Later, the PLA was ordered to divest itself of these businesses as an anti-corruption measure by CCP General Secretary, Jiang Zemin in 1997. (75) The year before that, pe...
7 comments
Read more

Karl Marx was the FIRST Democratic Socialist

Karl Marx was the first Democratic Socialist.  As the election of Zohran Mamdani shows, Democratic Socialism includes the belief that socialism can be realized through democratic processes , and that where this can be done No Violence is needed. Karl Marx declared over 150 years ago that “there are countries, such as America and England … where the workers may attain their goal by peaceful means.” [1] And, ironically, in a New York City newspaper, the New York World, published on July 18, 1871, Marx said “the way to show political power [in Britain] lies open to the working class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work.” [2] Then, as if prophetically describing our own times, Marx observed, “Let us sum it all up in a word. The working classes remain poor amid the increase of wealth, wretched amid the increase of luxury. Their material privation dwarfs their moral as well as their physical stature. They cannot rely on othe...
Post a Comment
Read more