A burgeoning marketing campaign looking for to revive hire management in some communities already faces stiff, well-funded opposition on coverage grounds, and now it might want to face up to a constitutional problem as properly.
The Fiscal Alliance Foundation, a authorities watchdog and advocacy group that opposes hire management, urged Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s workplace to halt the progress of an initiative petition that may substitute a statewide ban on the follow with a brand new legislation permitting cities and cities to control rents, evictions and housing models set to go away the rental market.
In a seven-page authorized memo submitted to Campbell’s workplace, Fiscal Alliance Foundation Chair Danielle Webb argued the potential 2024 query improperly combines a number of subjects and wades into territory the Constitution guidelines off limits.
Article 48 of the state Constitution, which lays out the method for bringing initiative petitions to the poll, requires measures to include solely “related” or “mutually dependent” subjects.
Webb mentioned the proposed poll query led by Cambridge Rep. Mike Connolly ought to fail that check as a result of limits on rents and limits on evictions are too completely different to be thought of with a single sure or no vote.
“Regulating rents is legally, practically, and substantially different from regulating evictions. Tenants may be (and often are) evicted for numerous reasons other than — and entirely unrelated to — nonpayment of or disagreements about rent,” Webb wrote.
Campbell’s workplace by Sept. 6 should certify or decline to certify all 42 measures newly filed this yr. Those selections are designed to replicate solely whether or not a query fulfills necessities specified by the state Constitution, not how Campbell or her deputies really feel concerning the coverage deserves.
Webb introduced Campbell’s workplace with a second level of competition as properly.
She argued that granting cities and cities “plenary power” to control rents, evictions and removing of rental models from the market because the query proposes runs afoul of the Constitution’s ban on initiative petitions that infringe on “the right to receive compensation for private property appropriated to public use.”
Connolly mentioned the committee is working with authorized counsel to submit a proper response memo to Campbell’s workplace. He mentioned Tuesday that supporters “fully anticipated these legal challenges, and we remain confident that our proposal meets all the Article 48 criteria for the Attorney General’s certification.”
Separately, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the City Council have been looking for approval from lawmakers to convey hire management again to the capital metropolis.
The metropolis’s proposed residence rule petition would cap annual hire will increase at 6% plus the annual change within the Consumer Price Index, with a mixed most of 10%, whereas exempting newer models, owner-occupied buildings with six or fewer models and the primary yr of a brand new tenant’s residence.
— Chris Lisinski / State House News Service
Source: www.bostonherald.com”