California Ballot Forum: Propositions 33 and 34 - Rent Control and AIDS Healthcare Foundation Rules

thanks to our California ballot Forum sponsors bicker Castillo Fairbanks and spits public affairs the tribal Alliance of sovereign Indian nations the western states petroleum Association physician Association of California Perry Communications Lucas public affairs KP public affairs Capital advocacy the Whitman group California professional firefighters the no on 33 campaign and the yes on 34 campaign thanks Tim and I hope I have not permanently destroyed the definition of well-informed for anybody uh yes I am Rising Capital weekly editor-in Chief and um thank to Susie Shannon Anon Ethan click uh for being here today um I want to start out with just a couple of brief notes here and then we'll get right into it uh somebody asked why did you put these two together well let me explain uh really quick prop 33 of course is the justice for renters act which seeks to repeal the 1995 Costa Hawkins state law that prevents cities and counties from expanding uh any local rent control laws it's the third time that this proposal will have been put before voters by AIDS Healthcare Foundation CEO Michael Weinstein and I say that because he is the primary funer of these efforts uh and then proposition 34 uh would require healthc care providers who spend more than $100 million on anything other than direct patient care over a decade and operated housing with more than 500 High severity health and safety violations that they spend at least 98% of their revenue from the federal discount prescription drug program on patients and patient care a proposal that would pretty much only apply to the AIDS Health Care Foundation we get into it but that's not exactly true okay I you will get you will get a chance to correct I say the well-informed part might get challenged her lot uh I will say that right now too the overwhelming majority of all the money raised by prop 33 uh supporters has come from AHF While most of the money that has come not all but certainly most of the money that's come for prop 34 has come from uh California Association of Realtors and the California Apartment Association just a full disclosure on who all is behind all these so with all that out of the way uh why don't we take these one at a time let's start with prop 33 and michan I'm to start with you and Miss Shannon is the campaign manager for yes on 33 no on 34 Nathan click is the campaign manager for yes on 34 so once again full disclosure for everybody let me start with you start with the most obvious thing in the world why should voters support proposition 33 sure um proposition 33 is pretty easy initiative to understand it allows local government to expand rank control since 1995 which which is when the Costa Hawkins legislation passed our local government has not been able to expand rent control that has led to the highest number of rent burdened people in California than anywhere in the entire country um it has led to people um having to make decisions between get for seniors on a fixed income between paying for rent or um buying prescription medication for students um who are having a lot of trouble finding um rental apartments who are living in their cars um to people just entering the workforce who are having a lot of trouble finding any kind of rental housing near where they work we have workers now as you heard in the previous panel um who are driving two hours to work because they can't find any place to live near where they work and we find this to be like a huge affordable housing crisis we've also lost a million people out of California in last five years um we know too that our homelessness numbers since 1995 have gone way up there uh over 186,000 people are homeless the state of California a Zillow study showed that for every 5% increase in rent in Los Angeles another 2,000 people become homeless um so the it's a very simple initiative it's only 23 words the state may not limit the right of any city or county or city and county to to maintain enact or expand residential rent control it's endorsed by the county of San Francisco the city of West Hollywood city of Santa Monica city of Bel Gardens over 100 elected and formerly elected officials including 23 Mayors and former mayors it's endorsed by the California Democratic party it's opposed by the Republican party it's um endorsed by the California Alliance for retired Americans veterans voices mental health advocacy Unite Here Local 11 in the California Nurses Association legislators Ben Senator Ben Allen um assembly member Alex Lee Chris Holden Maran Lena dzo Aisha wahab Reggie Jones Sawyer and Congress members Maxine Waters Jimmy Gomez roana barbar Lee and Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont it's also endorsed by many many tenant organizations and affordable housing Advocates including Ace housing now tenant groups up and down the state of California uh who advocate for affordable housing I want to address um one thing really quickly which is um pretty much the the main talking point of our opposition regarding new construction um in Ju we're absolutely going to get into that I don't want to I I want to give him a shot too and then believe me I have stuff we're going to get to all of it okay uh Mr click why should voters not I'll be a little bit more short-winded uh Californians have rejected uh similar measures twice before by a 20% margin uh they understand that this would make our housing crisis worse you just look at all of the experts who have looked at this issue from the Lao on down the Lao when looking at prop 33 said that fewer houses would be available for rent for your homes rent would actually go up for many renters especially for low-income renters study after study has shown that wealthy renters are the one that are advantaged by uh these extreme forms of rent control uh it reduces local property taxes and fundamentally it'll make our housing crisis worse and our homelessness crisis works because there will be less affordable housing all right well I noted and I think you did to this is the third time that this proposition has gone before voters both times they have rejected it fairly emphatically so why do you think it will be different this time around so I think that a lot of things in California are different as I mentioned homelessness is up at 186,000 and we now have more people rered in the state of California than anywhere in the country things have gotten worse I think that people don't believe that the status quo is going to um you know correct what is our affordable housing crisis here and um I think you know the time is now and it is true that prop 21 which was an earlier iteration of this um and also prop 10 um did not pass at the ballot we know that all movements are usually a pretty long game whether that's several rights movement or women's rights movement um but also we were outspent three to one with the other side saying this is bad for renters we know that Californians overwhelmingly support rent control we're running polls I'm they're running polls and they see that and so um you know the game is basically to outspend the other side and basically spread misinformation um let me ask that a different way for you Nathan because um we do have a significant homelessness problem an unhoused person problem in this state there's no question about that why wouldn't voters want to support something that might actually help uh at least give them some certainty when it comes to their rent it would make our homelessness crisis worse it would put more people out on the street what study after study has shown is that it these policies policies Advantage the wealthiest renters and it hurts those who are trying to break into the rental market especially those that are moving from temporary housing to permanent housing it lowers the amount of permanent housing available and it helps those who are older and wealthier uh stay in their rental units and I'm curious you know why is that why does it prevent um younger newer or less money renters makes it makes uh there's less affordable housing available there's less housing available so those fewer units go for higher prices and fundamentally it decreases the incentive for people to build more housing um so that's why you have folks like the council California Council for affordable housing California yimi abundant housing La very Progressive housing groups who are opposing this initiative uh many of them haven't been on the record uh on these ballot measures before uh that's why they're stepping up so Shannon um how exactly would this work if voters approve it because as you noted and you read it's 23 words there's nothing that requires local governments to impose rent control so what would be the if let's go with for just a moment we'll say Nathan's 100% accurate here why would what's the motivation for them to implement rent control if they don't absolutely have to yeah so I would not say that Nathan is 100 100% accurate um so what this does is actually repeal Costa Hawkins and allow your city council members and your County Supervisors who you elected to represent you to lower um rent increases so it allows for just reasonable rents um right now people are really struggling wages are stagnant as we we heard in the previous panel and they cannot keep up with the increase in rent um for to pay $3,500 for a two-bedroom apartment how is a waitress with two kids going to afford that how does your Starbucks Barista afford that how does somebody who work at Target afford that how does PE how do people with moderate income afford that when we were trying to get the legislature to pass this we were talking to AIDS to legislators and the AIDS were saying that Sacramento is they're getting priced out of Sacramento so this is a housing an affordable housing prices this is an experiment since 1995 that clearly hasn't worked we don't need to guess at what California looks like before Costa Hawkins we know what California look like before 1995 rents were lower homelessness was lower since 1995 those have increasingly gone up and we need Solutions here and we believe that part of that solution is that were County supervisor and City Council Members would be able to regulate those rents so that the whole Community can afford to live there not just you know the rich uh or famous or people who make over $100,000 a year let let meum let me jump in here the city of Berkeley studied its rent control uh over a 15-year period after it was enacted what they found is they actually lost 3,500 uh rental units they brought private apartment complex construction to a halt the only thing that was built in the entire city as far as housing went was federally subsidized units Santa Monica did a similar study after they enacted rent control they showed declines in apartments rented in their City while other cities that were just across the border saw gains uh low income vot low-income renters uh declined in both of these cities fundamentally what prop 33 will do is promote gentrification uh and just be a force uh for nism in the state that's why you have Progressive leaders who have been on the front lines of housing uh in the state from Buffy Wicks to Tony Atkins to Todd Gloria have stood up and said no on 33 they weren't a part of the last campaigns uh but they are standing up because they see that this is a really important fight for their cities okay but let me follow up on that really quickly because okay but why shouldn't local municipalities have the ability to decide for themselves we do that with uh Housing Development we pretty much all local or all housing is pretty much controlled by local ordinances why not let cities decide for themselves what is right for them that's that hasn't been true for the last 5 years since the state's really put really important uh legislation forward to increase the amount of affordable housing that gets built in cities AC across the county you have uh 14 uh AB 1482 you have S sp9 um you have a number of measures that were put in place to increase housing production because you saw a lot of uh unfortunately nimi cities stay in the way stand in the way of building affordable housing this gives the state an ability to uh require that that housing gets buil uh if it passes certain criteria um but what prop 33 would do would invalidate uh a number of those Provisions important Provisions that were passed by the state uh that's why Tony Atkins said that this is just an end-run uh nimbyism by a different name Buffy Wix said the same thing uh that it will invalidate uh a number of really important state housing laws I know you wanted to respond to that I wanted to respond to three things one it does not invalidate any housing laws and we know that because California Department Association actually put that in the ballot guide and we went into court and the judge threw it out so you will not be seeing it in your in your ballot argument because that is the the judge actually approved it said the judge approved that it provided an end run for six absolutely the second thing is the second thing is there's no causal effect between rent control and the loss of rental units with the small exception of the fact that we have another law on the books called the Ellis act and we would agree um that that should be repealed as well and that allows landlords to take their rental units off the market and convert them into condos or sell them as long as they're not putting them uh back into the rental market after they do that so that's number two um there's also as part of Costa Hawkins vacancy decontrol so we do find that landlords um have been landlords that are represented by the California Apartment Association a lot of corporate landlords who are represented by them have been targeting renters to get them to leave so that they can lift the cost of that apartment up to market rate that is part of Costa Hawkins so once this is repealed if uh prop 33 passes that will no longer be the case um I do want to point out though because this is the elephant in the room um um something about basically the building of new construction so in July 2023 32 economists from rug university University of Texas UC Santa Barbara University of Massachusetts sent a letter to President Biden asking him to enact National rent control and what they wrote is there is substantial empirical evidence that rent regulation policies do not limit new construction nor the overall supply of housing so would like I would like my sake I would like my timea my time I promise you I'll also write when rank control was repealed in Massachusetts there was no corresponding increase in housing Supply USC study from 2018 I'm reading directly from here so that it can't be refuted wrote evidence suggests there is little negative impact on new construction 2018 you see Berkeley Institute this is the last one this the last one claims that rent control has negative effects on development on new housing are generally not supported by research that's so okay that's is no consensus yeah there's no academic consensus here and the economists do not agree on this that's not true there is a academic consensus uh among academics on how uh these types of policies would stop affordable housing construction and that's fundamentally what prop 33 is about uh it's put forward by AHF Susan's employer uh which is one of the most prolific nimes in the State uh AHF has misused their money frankly and oppos 23,000 new affordable housing units mostly in the LA area since 2016 they uh put forward measure s which was a Los Angeles ballot measure that would have halted the construction of all housing units in the city of Los Angeles for 2 years who said this uh quote with more transients neighborhoods are losing their identity as fewer and fewer people are invested there living there for the long term who said that Michael Weinstein Susie Shannon's boss uh he even advocated for neighborhoods with less renters and more homeowners HF is one of the biggest nimes in the state that's why they put forward this ballot measure and that's why affordable housing Advocates from the California Council for affordable housing California yimi abundant housing LA are all standing up and saying no so affordable housing activists are actually with us um this is a very large and growing Coalition um that support yes on 33 um I do want to address measure s because this keeps coming up from Nathan click and I keep letting it go but um had Nathan click actually read measure s for Los Angeles it actually has an exemption for 100% affordable housing it was actually going after the people that California apartment owners owners Association represents which are corporate landlords making billions of editorial after editorial in the LA Times castigated AHF for blocking affordable housing units from measure s hey time out time out out reclaiming my time time out time out time out okay I get it this is a very volatile issue um there's very clearly very fun FAL difference here as to what prop 33 does and does not do wanted we just for the moment agree to disagree on that un let's go on to prop 34 because as I noted the two are intrinsically connected okay prop 34 essentially and and I think maybe I said it in a way that you didn't agree with earlier absolutely um but what we're really talking about here is essentially how the money that is spent from the federal discount drug program or how that the savings from that how it is spent and uh we'll get into that in just a moment because for those of you who don't know exactly how this works uh AHF is one of many nonprofits that get a big discount on federal drugs uh for u a variety of different mostly AIDS that's where it all started they use they then Bill insurance compan uh the full pop for and again feel free to correct me if I'm getting this wrong and then they take that the the money that they make off that and that's how they fund these things now the big and most of the patients are on are on taxpayer hang on you'll get your shot you'll get sh last night I know we you'll get your shot here I I basically have that correct though right that's that's where the not exactly okay well you can correct me too everybody can correct me here right and so what're really debating here is how they get to spend their money whether it's on ballot measures or whether it's on patient care so I wanted to make sure we had that and I'm believe we're going to circle right back to this in just a moment but I'm going to start the same thing same way as with last time this I'm going to start with you prop 34 sure why should voter support prop 34 patient money should go to helping patients Congress passed the 340b program and said one you shouldn't charge taxpayers this upch charge and two all of this money should go into expanding patient care uh they wrote it into their intent language uh but they didn't put any rules and regulations around that now 30 30 plus years later we have uh 340b entities blatantly misusing this money by buying naming rights to NFL training facilities throwing Janet Jackson concerts uh putting ballot measures on the ballot that would have stopped uh all Construction in Los Angeles buying luxury uh condos in Florida and selling them at a profit that's not what the program was intended for and to your earlier Point yes and we're going to get into it uh AHF is one of the worst offenders of this program but they are by by far uh not the only one we need real transparency and guard rails in this system and that's why you have so many groups supporting uh prop 34 I I do want to make I'm glad you said that because I want to emphasize here AHF is not the only entity that uses that formula uh as a as an income stream so I don't want to I don't want to make anyone think that that is the only entity doing that now please I'm going to ask you the inverse of the question why should people reject prop 34 from your perspective sure um so this is actually um opposed by National Organization for Women California National Organization for Women Hollywood uh National Organization for Women consumer Watchdog Coalition for economic survival which is a major tenant rights group Unite Here the restaurant and um hotel workers union and this is because it is a Revenge initiative it is strictly focused on AIDS healthc Care Foundation put on the ballot by the California Apartment Association who wants to stop AIDS health Foundation from helping tenants they want to keep AIDS Healthcare Foundation from putting right control initiatives on the ballot because they don't want to keep spending the hundreds of millions of dollars that they're spending now to oppose it the California Apartment Association is not a patient advocacy organization they uh represent corporate landlords and developers and this is to help their profits they don't want to keep going to the ballot they don't want us to keep helping tenants and when you think about it tenant rights groups across California um are are some of like the least well-funded organizations um these are low-income tenants who are just looking for a fair shake and they don't have a lot of money their main Advocate that actually has some money to help put initiatives on the ballot um is Aid Healthcare Foundation and so obviously they're in the business of shutting that down okay um can I just pivot off of something that you said real quick please so while the California Department Association is supporting prop 34 there are a number of other supporters uh from patients groups like The California chronic care Association San Francisco hepb free the ALS Association uh First Responders like the California professional firefighters uh even the United nurses of California uh are supporting the measure because they see that patient dollar meant by Congress to help patients should go towards patients care even taxpayer advocates in California senior Alliance I want to go off of something that you said um quote helping tenants let's talk about one of the ways uh AHF uses this money that's meant for patients the LA times has profiled on a number of front page investigative stories how La how uh AHF is has been called by its tenants a SL a slumlord they have three times the amount of violations of other nonprofit housing providers along skidrow in the LA area uh Michael Weinstein Weinstein said uh they practice tough love in evicting tenants uh they've been fined for refusing to clean up roaches rats they've even refused to repair elevators that later their residents fell down this is is not a progressive organization okay can I respond I mean that was like a lot of name respond to you but you go right ahead I mean just ask the LA Times so you can yeah well how about ask the city of Los Angeles so um in Los Angeles and I have worked with our UNH housee Community since 2005 in un tenant advocacy and AIDS Healthcare Foundation was just awarded T $10 million from Housing and Urban Development to um do tenant organizing so um I don't I find these to be just specious arguments that are name calling the city of Los Angeles actually has a program for um actual slum Lords and that's called the reap program and if there are violations the city puts um that landlord many who are represented by the California Apartment Association into What's called the reap program and all the tenant money actually goes into an escrow account and it's held there until the violations are fixed now there are violations against AHF but it's from when they bought the building they they buy um you know uh older buildings and fix them up through adaptive reuse and so at the close of escrow usually within the next day or so um an inspector will come and so those violations are really in a previous landlord your own tenants have said your own tenants said that the problem has gotten worse since you took over these buildings you are not hearing is that um AHF sued the previous landlord for the Madison and won a $1.5 million judgment because the judge agreed that the elevator problem which was a very old problem was not disclosed and so has can you guarantee that elevator's fixed at the Madison I don't work in facilities but I believe okay hold on it's 100y old elevator with a smaller shaft than a regular elevator hold on everybody but it's just this is just a distraction from the the real cause for prop 34 well right now it's a distraction from us being able to continue this panel so hang on just one second please um because I want to address something though from her her perspective here because we know the governor has issued an executive order that limits how much uh medical can be charged through one of these deep drug discount programs absolutely why not rather than a ballot measure why don't you guys work with the legislature to codify the governor's executive order into statute rather than making it the Public's uh responsibility to mediate what is essentially a brawl between the apartment association and AHF Patient Advocates have time and again tried to do that that's why they're supporting our ballot measure AHF has stood in the way wait a minute though you're what you're saying is lawmakers won't do it because somebody's blocking them from they have the power AHF is a very powerful force uh in the state legislature and they've blocked every attempt and they're even going to uh future gubernatorial candidates and say will you repeal the governor's executive order it only rests on an executive order any future Governor can uh do away with it that's why we need to put prop 34 in place these are just specious arguments I'll give you a chance to respond to understand what the 340b program is um first of all AIDS Healthcare Foundation spends 96 96 cents of every dollar on patient care um however it's really important that we allow for the advocacy from that program um the last time it was attacked so viciously um was in Wisconsin under Republican governor Scott Walker who went after a reproductive rights organization who was using their money to add Advocate on behalf of um women's access to an abortion so it also allows the state to Define what patient care is and we're worried that if this passes then there are limits placed on the 340b program other states are going to follow suit um from what California does and pass limits um particularly in Reproductive Rights organizations this is why National Organization number one reason why they oppose proposition 34 but prop 34 is a discount program very similar to your Costco card if you go into Costco and you buy something at a discounted rate um what the law basically says is that the money that you save can be used on the mission of the organization now if you know anything about the social determinance of Health a Healthcare Foundation actually started off as a Housing Organization because they were the first organization to provide hospice for AIDS patients in the 1980s when there were no hospices and a lot of um because we didn't know a lot about um the virus um a lot of people were concerned about you know putting patients in with um with with other that had AIDS in with other patients um and so the mission of the organization is to help um patients but we all know you know with Kaiser Foundation now getting into housing the LGBT Center of Los Angeles getting being involved in housing we all know that if someone isn't housed that they are more likely to have underlying health conditions over time they are more likely to die if they have current underlying health conditions and so any medical doctor who is helping patients who are unhoused knows this I let me let me cut I'm a health commissioner and I can tell you that um the social determinants of Health are what we really need to focus on and that includes making sure that people are housed um so that they actually can get better faster let me let me cut in here cuz I'm going to ask you the same kind of question I asked him because I put him on the spot about why lawmakers can't handle this there also seems to be an obvious workaround from your end you you mentioned that a lot of the violations that have been noted came from previous ownership but you guys have owned these buildings for a very long time now why not just bring uh take care of all these high level violations and make that a priority before about another ballot measure that cost tens of millions of dollars sure great question so yeah that's a really great question and I really appreciate you asking that because they have been and that's why AHF is not in the reap program like other slumlords that are represented by the California Apartment Association can I just jump in here please can I get a second respond I I'd like to ask you a question based off something you just said could we just have the moderator do that please I have a lot of question4 are supposed to be used for the the mission of the organization that's what you said how is it in ahf's mission to buy millions of dollars in luxury condos in Florida how is it an afhs mission to host Janet Jackson concerts DJ khed concerts Mariah Carey concert Christina agilera concerts how is it in your mission to put measure s on the ballot that would stop housing construction how is it your mission to secretly put disgraced politicians on your payroll and do undis lobbying for you like you did with uh Kevin Deo okay I think you made your point please go ahead but how is that in the what Nathan click is attacking is something called World AIDS day um AHF has 2 million patients in care and is in over 46 countries around the world they put in the first AIDS clinic in an African country when no one wanted to do that these concerts um for World AIDS day are very important for education for allowing people to understand where we are currently um with the AIDS virus and they're very important educational events for someone from the California Apartment Association or who works for them to attack World AIDS day to me is absolutely unconscionable how as absolutely in the mission of an organization to utilize celebrities who have a bullhorn who can help call attention to what's going on with the AIDS virus that's absolutely within the mission there are a couple of condos that Health Foundation I'm answering the question please 10 in Florida okay are you going to give me the floor thank you um in addition to that um the there are two condos I think that Aid Healthcare Foundation owns and that's because people come and visit these clinics from all over the world and so it actually would cost more or cause more of a a you know a problem for people coming from overseas to be looking for a hotel so it's actually less expensive to just have something so that people can come and visit the clinics and the the great I think you're talking about your Hollywood condos these are your 10 in Miami Florida that uh you bought and then sold we clinics in Florida we have clinics we have a housing program we have have um buildings that we are buying also in Florida and fixing up okay we're going to call I'm going to call time out here to let you all know we're going to go to questions here in just a minute I'm really hoping yall have something here because uh I I get a feeling that there's going to be some answers here but before we go there I'm going to I have one more of my own here um can I ask a question of Nathan click since he was allowed to do that I have a question for you um um so Jeffrey Palmer who gave money to the no on 21 campaign and the no on 10 campaign when the city of Los Angeles passed inclusionary zoning to mandate aord 15% affordable housing for new housing construction because I know you care so much about affordable housing sued the city of Los Angeles and he said that he didn't have to provide that affordable housing and here is what the judge wrote forcing Palmer to Pro provide affordable housing units at regulated R rate rents in order to obtain project approval is clearly hostile to the right afforded under the Costa Hawkins act to establish the initial rental rate for a dwelling or unit so right there it shows that Costa Hawkins has prevented the construction of affordable housing and inclusionary zoning and California Department Association has been part of opposing that that I'll just say that it I think we're back on 33 now uh but there's a reason why one of the biggest nimes in the entire State uh Huntington Beach uh mayor Tony Strickland he's now a council member said that prop 33 would give them this Huntington Beach all the tools they needed to avoid building affordable housing it would provide nimi cities an end run around building their affordable housing uh requirements Tony Strickland opposes prop 33 wrote in oped in the OC Register saying that he opposes rent control and he opposes prop 33 but he said we would love to use prop 33 to stop the affordable housing he literally said it I think you need to disclose the fact that Tony Strickland is absolutely against prop 33 I think that's we we pretty much get it about who is and isn't on the sides of each of one of these sorry I didn't mean to put that in your face I apologize for that but I do want to ask a question here and and Nathan I'm going to ask it to you um because I think there is some concern everything in law is about precedent right everything is about precedent for the most part so there is some concern that this could set a pretty uh unfortunate precedent where a large moneyed interest special interest if you will could essentially muscle out another OPP opposing interest Through The Ballot Box why not just let people decide for themselves if they want to spend $100 million on this why not why why should voters do something that blocks them from having the right to address that grievance through the ballot I think your question gets at the you know point you made at the beginning of this which was not true it it doesn't just uh affect one organization there are a number of 340b entities out there who are misusing the program uh like the example I used for uh using 340b funds to buy the naming rights to NFL trading facility uh that's not AHF that's a different entity there are number of other entities that misuse this money and that's why you have such a broad Coalition especially of patients groups who say we need real transparency real accountability in the 340b system okay but okay I I you were correct the way I worded that made it sound like it was only HF which is why I went back and changed that but why not then just go after the 340b program itself instead of because you have to admit the way you guys wrote 34 it pretty much is going to apply only to them there there are a number of folks that could apply to and frankly uh this has been taken up by the legislature uh there's been real momentum to do it Jerry Brown tried to do it through the legislature twice and he got backed down even with the Democratic legislature uh because of the entrenched interests uh in frankly the power that AHF has in the legislature uh The Ballot Box is the last option for this type of measure but uh for this type of accountability but it's the only option right now so traditionally it's Republican Congress members who have been trying to shut down the 340b program and that's because it's primarily used by organizations that um support access to women's Reproductive Rights and abortion and um this is why governor Scott Walker attacked this in Wisconsin in 2018 using the exact same oh I'm sorry I think it was 2016 using the exact same talking points they're using now uh this is a slippery slope that is going to impact women's rights organizations which is why National Organization for Women attacks it I do want to clear up one um thing that was said that is untrue any organization in the 340b program needs to sell any medication you know that they're dispensing um at whatever the rate is set for Medicaid or at whatever the rate is set by the insurance company they're not like you know overcharging um unlike California Department associations developers are uh with renters but they're not overcharging they're they're basically charging the same amount as any other organization um it's meant to help nonprofits to carry out their mission um and I believe it also gives a tax break um to the pharmaceutical companies as well and Democrats have been trying to save Democratic Congressional representatives are trying to save this program and it's been the Republican Congressional Representatives which is why you see the Republican party is supporting 34 um because this actually has a slippery slope for women's Reproductive Rights okay we need to move to questions but Nathan yeah just really quickly on the Reproductive Rights points uh CL Parenthood actually looked at this ballot measure and they issued uh a neutral position they said that we looked at this this will not affect our ability to provide reproductive care but there has been really really really bad action taken by AHF in this space uh AHF was criticized by LGBT leaders for demonizing prep which is uh drug that prevents uh HIV transmission we dispense prep in our clinics Michael weining called prep a party drug uh when it's saved countless countless lives all right we we dispense prep in our I mean you can let that go we dispense prep and advertise prep in our clinic so you spent years years you you can name as much as you want it doesn't change the fact as recently doesn't change the fact that Target organization AHF and is a slippery slope for women's Reproductive Rights and the people on the side of trying to get rid of the 340b program are limiting it why the Republican Party supports it I'm going to do a mute the mic stinger in a second we got to go to audience questions please tell me there's an audience question out here okay you guys want to the debate you got we have a question in the room uh does anyone in the room have a question uh okay so I do have a a a question from outside so assuming that neither of these goes through that prop 33 gets a no prop 34 gets a no what happens next what is I mean uh a Healthcare Foundation has repeatedly brought uh rank control to the ballot uh I'm just wondering on both sides what are the next steps if these don't pass what are the plans there have you gotten that far can you kind of talk about what the future might look like assuming that do not go through well Michael Weinstein has said he's going to take this to the ballot over and over and over again it's recently as last year so I think we'll see that and prop 34 is not the first time that people have tried to put real accountability and transparency on the 340b system AHF is a great example why we need real accountability and transparency on how that doll those dollars are spent uh so I imagine if uh not this entity there will be other other attempts at uh at at putting real guard rails on the 340b program because clearly it's not being spent well by so rent control is a growing movement you probably saw that kamla Harris came out for a 5% National Rent cap which was after um President Biden came out for a 5% national rank cap um this is a movement we've seen with the women's movement the Civil Rights Movement many many movements that it's a long game um I I believe that prop 33 is going to pass this time I think third time is a charm I think that people are very upset with the status quo and they will support this if for some reason it doesn't go through we will be there again and just on the we will never ever stop advocating her entity is putting Harrison ads after her campaign has said she doesn't support prop 33 no we are not putting no yeah absolutely you're up on TV literally the head of the rent control movement now nationally much to your saying you can talk to kamla Harris about how she shouldn't have uh you know a policy statement on right control she does she's at the top of the ticket she's our vice president and our ad say she has not likess the head of a movement for rent control is kamla Harris look at up do we have a different question and do we have uh oh okay you go sorry I was a little late getting in here but I do have a question about prop 33 um to get each of Y opinion I know it's a volle conversation like you said Rich up how would this affect uh accessory dwelling unit it's a great question if you have an accessory D dwelling unit uh any local city city government could put uh a price control and tell you exactly how much to uh charge uh for renting out that Adu uh it would also uh allow cities like Huntington Beach who have been trying to block those Adu laws from uh putting in restrictions that essentially make the economics of adus not work out uh and prevent uh a number of those adus that are built in order for rental units to be built right so it the short answer is this doesn't put anything into law so your local government could also exempt adus easily um what we're just basically hearing are a lot of Scare Tactics that are coming from the other side about what could happen but the truth is most of our rank controlled cities don't do that they just don't do that um so um it's possible of course um that adus could be under rank control but again it's your local city council members that you elect it's your local supervisors I don't know what they're afraid of other than the fact that they'll have to Lobby in every city in California to try to stop control the author of The Adu streamlining Bill who has been a champion on adus said pointed to that law and said that is one of the reasons you must vote no on Prop 33 okay what else is out there I to address I would like to address address Senator Tony Atkins if I could so Tony Atkins was the author of s sp9 sb9 allowed it for the destruction of single family dwellings um for um you know multif family housing fine we asked for them to put in just 15% affordable housing inclusionary zoning and they would not do that so ultimately what happened to S sp9 is that they went into to court and the court threw it out and you know why the court threw it out because it didn't provide any affordable housing so the legislature has refused to act on any mandates for affordable housing California Apartment Association and the corporate landlords that they represent have stopped it they don't support affordable housing I think it's a shame that also want to mention I also want to mention one more thing cuz I wasn't finished attacking Tony AER in this place one at a time California Apartment Association issues pack has given Tony Atkins $462,500 since 2016 okay that that's a fair point ton has been a leader on on fixing our state's housing crisis and it's you know really disrespectful and kind of shocking to see an organization that purports to be a leader in housing all right we have a we have a question over here we have time for about one more so sad go ahead hi so I actually had a question you had mentioned earlier that um this legislation is going to prevent the oh my goodness hang on one second okay so it's going to limit housing right you're saying that it's only going to benefit the wealthy if rent control is enacted by counties how is that possible if people people are able to afford the places that they're able to live they're not having to move out how does that limit it as opposed to these people's rents going up and them have it being forcibly moved out it it does so because essentially the it limits the amount of new construction that's built and it's the tenants who are older who have been in their units for longer who tend to be wealthier they get the benefit it's the people who are just breaking into the housing market uh who find the scarcity of Housing and a much higher housing when they're uh looking for apartments so these would be folks who are transitioning from temporary housing to permanent housing folks who are just out of school and looking for their first place with roommates like those are the folks um who would be most impacted and if you look at San Francisco for example study after study has shown that rank control in San Francisco has helped those uh wealthier older tenants at the expense of those who are trying to break in to the housing market uh service workers in San Francisco study after study is shown Stanford did a great study of this um they have to live outside of the city of San Francisco because all of the units are being taken up by wealthier individuals and those there's not enough housing construction uh to make up uh any more new units okay just time for your quick answer please okay um so the answer is um this is a specious argument so tenants make 50% of what landlords make okay our tenants cannot afford to live here we have seen tenant displacement we've seen gentrification I'm sure many of us have relatives or friends or you may be experiencing this yourself which is that you just simply can't afford these rent increases every single month when wages are stagnant we have labor unions who are trying to you know get a wage increase of for a dollar and you know a dollar an hour and that wage increase is getting eaten up by rent increases so it's not we we want wage increases to improve people's lives but because landlords are able to come in and they want to be completely unregulated and to raise the rent to whatever they want it's having a negative impact on our community it's having negative impact on our low-income workers it's having a negative impact on homelessness which also affects our communities and a million people have left California in The Last 5 Years very hard I am a renter I will tell you it is very hard to keep up with rent increases on that note because now we're repeating ourselves here and it is time I'm just going to leave it with this you have two very passionate Advocates if you have questions they got to get between here and the door there's your chance okay and I highly encourage you if you have any confusion on this go go do your own research for all that loaded ter meines but go find out everything you can for yourself you got uh you got uh what about how many days have we got before the election Nathan you should know like 50ish yeah you got plenty of time go find out for yourself thank you both for coming here today and sharing all of this passion and insight with all of this audience thank you all very much and we'll be back in just a little bit with our Keynote [Music]