A New England fiscal group argued Friday that an effort to repeal a statewide ban on lease management violates two constitutional provisions that govern whether or not poll questions could make it earlier than voters in fall 2024.
The Fiscal Alliance Foundation submitted feedback in opposition to a proposed poll query filed by Rep. Mike Connolly that will scrap a portion of state legislation banning lease management and change it with new language permitting municipalities to control residential evictions, rents and costs, brokers’ charges, and the removing of housing items from the rental housing market.
In a letter to Attorney General Andrea Campbell, basis chair Danielle Webb mentioned the query crossed two sections of the state structure that prohibit poll questions that create takings of property with out simply compensation and proposals that handle a number of unrelated insurance policies in the identical query.
Webb mentioned as a result of the query grants municipalities the ability to control residential rents, charges, evictions, and removing of housing items from the rental market, it “would result in the appropriation of private property for public use without compensation.”
“The attorney general cannot avoid taking notice of the fact that the regulation of rents and the regulation of the removal of units from the rental market will result in a significant appropriation of private property value, given high market value rents and high demand for rental units across the Commonwealth,” Webb wrote within the letter to Campbell.
The proposed poll query consists of two unrelated issues because it supplies native cities and cities with the ability to control residential rents and evictions, Webb mentioned.
“The petition’s proposed regulation of both rents and evictions fails to satisfy the related subjects requirement,” Webb mentioned. “Although rents and evictions may be related at ‘some high level of abstraction,’ the petition fails to present a ‘unified statement of public policy’ that may be accepted or rejected as a whole by voters.”
Connolly’s query is one in all 42 petitions for proposed legal guidelines and constitutional amendments that have been filed with Campbell’s workplace final week. Campbell has till Sept. 6 to determine which questions meet constitutional muster and should then acquire greater than 74,000 signatures in about three months.
Connolly, a Cambridge Democrat and renter himself, mentioned his proposed poll query is critical as a result of the state’s ongoing housing disaster doesn’t have any precedent in trendy historical past.
“Never has affordable housing been this out of reach to this many people, and never has homelessness been this pervasive in our commonwealth,” he advised the Herald in a telephone name Friday. “And if you go back over history over the past 103 years in Massachusetts, it has been a common response to housing emergency for there to be rent control.”
He mentioned he’s “very confident” the poll query satisfies constitutional necessities and pointed to a number of durations within the state’s historical past when lease management was in place.
“Certainly, the proposal that we filed includes provisions to ensure that it is fully compliant with the constitution,” he mentioned. “Regarding the relatedness clause, we’ve looked very closely at the Supreme Judicial Court’s jurisprudence on this question.”
The Cambridge Democrat mentioned his proposal presents voters with a easy, singular query, “should your municipal officials have the power to protect rents?”
“We’re very confident that as the attorney general reviews the proposal before her, that it will satisfy the constitutional requirements,” he mentioned.
Connolly’s proposed query wouldn’t apply to newly constructed dwelling items for which the residential certificates of occupancy was obtained for the primary time 15 years in the past or much less; two or three-family owner-occupied items; resorts or motels “which are rented primarily to transient guests for a period of less than” two weeks; publicly-owned housing; and public establishments of upper training, amongst others.
A 1994 voter-approved poll query put in place a statewide ban on lease management and Connolly’s proposed query appears to be like to repeal that.
Fiscal Alliance Foundation spokesperson Paul Craney mentioned the query is “poor policy and poorly written.”
“It would be unlawful for this ballot question to go forward and the [Attorney General’s Office] and Supreme Judicial Court have rejected other ballot questions for the same reasons we outline in our written comments,” he mentioned in a ready assertion.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”