California landlords may have just toppled their chief nemesis in a decadelong battle over local rent control ordinances.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein conceded in the fight against Proposition 34 Friday after results showed the proposition will pass by a slim majority, defanging the main sponsor behind multiple attempts to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
Preliminary results show 50.7 percent of voters said “yes” on the proposition.
It’s a second blow to the global nonprofit health network after California voters rejected Proposition 33, striking down AHF’s latest attempt to challenge Costa-Hawkins and remove limits on rent control that have been in place in California since the 1990s.
Weinstein struck an embattled tone in a statement Friday, saying the defeats, “prove only one thing: if billionaires spend more than $170 million lying and confusing voters, they are virtually guaranteed to win.”
After AHF tried and failed to repeal Costa-Hawkins three times since 2018, the Yes on 34 campaign sought to put the kibosh on Weinstein’s meddling in politics altogether.
The proposition bars AHF from using its prescription drug revenues to fund campaigns. The nonprofit has an annual budget of about $2.5 billion, according to its website.
A federal program allows nonprofit pharmacies that serve at-risk populations to buy drugs at a big discount, charge insurance carriers the full price and use the difference to fund their mission. AHF has interpreted that to mean funding litigation and multi-million-dollar ballot initiatives on political issues that have nothing to do with healthcare.
The passage of Prop. 34 is a huge relief to its main backer, the California Apartment Association (CAA), which has helped fight off AHF-backed ballot proposals in 2018, 2020 and this year.
Those victories did not come cheap. The campaign to oppose Prop. 33 in this year’s general election cost $124.1 million, according to CalMatters.
In its political messaging, the Yes on Prop. 34 campaign stopped short of making the connection to AHF explicit, and rarely mentioned the organization by name.
According to CAA CEO Tom Bannon, the goal of Prop. 34 was to prevent the “blatant misuse of public dollars.”
AHF has already attempted to challenge the legality of Prop. 34 in a lawsuit earlier this year, but it was dismissed over the summer.
A spokesperson for AHF declined to comment on whether the nonprofit would revive litigation, but Weinstein made it clear he’s not ready to throw in the towel on rent control in California just yet.
“The battle for justice for renters marches on,” Weinstein said in a statement Friday.