Earlier this year, Patrick Range McDonald, the award-winning advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right, published an eye-opening exposé on his Medium page about the California Apartment Association’s deep-pocketed campaign to stop Proposition 33, the ballot measure that would have ended statewide rent control restrictions.
He also looked into the money trail of the California Apartment Association’s successful push to pass Proposition 34, a measure that attempts to silence the housing advocacy of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is the parent organization of Housing Is A Human Right.
McDonald spent months carefully examining the California Apartment Association’s state campaign filings, following a multi-million-dollar money trail and finding numerous connections to elected leaders and political groups, who helped kill Prop 33 and pass Prop 34.
McDonald’s investigation is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how corporate landlords and its powerful lobbying group, the California Apartment Association, operate to sway state and local elections.
Some of his key findings include:
- As the Prop 33 and Prop 34 campaigns unfolded, Big Real Estate carried out sneaky shell games to avoid scrutiny from the public and reporters. Corporate landlords first contributed millions in campaign cash to a California Apartment Association political committee or committees. Then to buy political favors, such as securing endorsements for No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34, the CAA distributed that money to elected officials, candidates, and political groups either directly or through obscure, CAA-connected political committees. It was all done to protect corporate landlords’ profits and to allow them to keep charging excessive rents.
- In 2023 and 2024, many of the country’s largest corporate landlords — Equity Residential, AvalonBay Communities, Essex Property Trust, Camden Property Trust, GID, UDR, MG Properties, Greystar, AIR Communities, and The Related Companies — quietly delivered millions in campaign cash to one or more of three California Apartment Association political committees to kill the expansion of rent control in California and silence AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s housing advocacy work.
- In 2023 and 2024, a group of 355 corporate landlords and smaller landlords shelled out an astonishing total of $135,875,365 to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee, which financed the CAA’s No on Prop 33 and Yes on Prop 34 campaigns. Out of those 355 contributors, a core group of only 68 corporate landlords, who contributed at least $100,000 to the CAA Issues Committee, delivered $131,765,298 — or 97 percent of all campaign cash sent to the CAA Issues Committee.
- Corporate landlords who contributed at least $100,000 to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee, in 2023 and 2024, also delivered $2,457,720 to the CAA’s Independent Expenditure Committee and $263,265 to the CAA’s Political Action Committee, which was then discreetly spent to win political favors.
- The California Apartment Association’s political committees also funded state politicians’ ballot measure committees — a kind of slush fund that elected officials use for travel, meals, entertainment, and other expenses.
- The CAA and corporate landlords’ money trails strongly suggest that they financed a dirty political trick to stop Prop 33 that involved Huntington Beach City Councilman Tony Strickland, a conservative Republican who urged his colleagues to support Prop 33 as a way to get around state-mandated housing production policies. Trying to change the minds of Democratic voters who supported Prop 33, a group of Democratic politicians, who received corporate-landlord money and opposed Prop 33, seized upon Strickland’s comments to frame the pro-rent control measure as a dangerous Republican plot to obstruct housing construction in California. Tellingly, Strickland and a former state assembly member who served Huntington Beach also banked contributions from the CAA and corporate landlords.
- Abandoning the housing justice movement, California YIMBY, YIMBY Action, and Abundant Housing LA, all of whom officially endorsed the CAA’s No on Prop 33 campaign, benefited politically by making alliances with corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association. And the California Apartment Association spent major campaign cash on at least 20 politicians endorsed by California YIMBY, YIMBY Action, or Abundant Housing LA. Most times, the CAA and corporate landlords used obscure, little-known political committees to deliver financial backing.
- While corporate landlords and the CAA were working to stop Prop 33 and pass Prop 34, they also shelled out campaign cash to sway local elections. In 2024, corporate landlords and the CAA helped kill a pro-rent control measure in Larkspur, California; helped repeal existing rent control policies in Fairfax, California; helped pass an election reform initiative in Richmond, California; helped pass a pro-density measure in San Mateo; and helped kill a parcel-tax measure that would have generated money to repair streets and improve parks in National City, California.
We strongly recommend reading the full exposé: “Special Report: California Apartment Association’s Big-Money Schemes to Kill Prop 33 and Pass Prop 34.”
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