Millions Already Fleeing Massachusetts

Anthony Lamacchia:

The validity of rent control being on the ballot this November in Massachusetts is in question from a lawsuit back in February, and it will be heard by the Supreme Judicial Court this Wednesday, May 6. Now, obviously, I am very much in favor of these very brave plaintiffs for taking on the state, taking on our Attorney General, taking on William Galvin, obviously, in their official capacity, and saying this should not be on the ballot. Now, as a reminder, rent control is being proposed here in Massachusetts, and if it ends up on the ballot, and if it was to pass, which I think it would if it ended up on the ballot, we would end up with the strictest rent control in the entire nation. As a reminder, it says that rent cannot be increased, either the cap would be 5% or the CPI increase, whichever is lower.

So we would end up with the strongest rent control in all of America, which is completely insane, and it would be nothing but absolutely terrible for all parties involved, and in the end, it would hurt tenants especially. Now, let me pick this apart and show you what this is all about. One of the things that they are talking about is Article 48.

So I am going to read some of this to you. Count one, the petition violates the Excluded Matters Clause of Article 48 because it eliminates the express right to compensation currently guaranteed by GLC40P. Obviously, a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo in there, but let me take you through it and give you my thoughts.

Pursuant to Article 48, no proposition inconsistent with the right to receive compensation for private property appropriated to public use. Now, Section 39 or Paragraph 39, although rent control is prohibited in mass, if a city or town does adopt a rent control regulation, the municipality adopting such regulations shall compensate owners of rent controlled units for each unit in the amount for the difference between fair market value and whatever they’re being held down to. So I actually didn’t realize this.

I just thought it got completely banned in 1994. It did in essence, and it hasn’t happened in any city or town since 1994. But basically what the law said is the state doesn’t want it, but if a city or town does it, then they have to pay the owner the difference between fair market value and what they’re actually being held to for charging of rent.

I think that’s great. If they want to do that in the state, go ahead. Let’s see the state pay everybody when they’re shorted on rent.

Now, number 40, under existing law, owners of residential rental properties have the express right to receive just compensation if rent control is imposed. I just talked about that. Now, a couple more things.

If enacted, the law would expressly eliminate the rights of residential rental property owners and others who have property interests in residential property rentals to receive compensation for their private property. The petition does not provide for any mechanism for a property owner or covered dwelling unit to seek relief from rent controls for any reason or receive any compensation as a result of the rent control limit if enacted. Basically what I just said, okay? Stay with me a little longer and then I promise I’ll get to my thoughts here.

Paragraph 47, because the proposed law without properly declaring a public emergency, there’s obviously no emergency, would appropriate private property rights, essentially mean take private property rights for public use without providing compensation. It is inconsistent with the right to receive compensation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The legal mumbo-jumbo.

So folks, here’s the deal. Number one, congratulations to these plaintiffs. Can’t pronounce all the names, but a Cecilia or a Del Signore, a Horry, and a Renfew.

Those are four names of the plaintiffs in this case. What they are doing is they are taking this to the largest court here in Massachusetts to say that it should not be on the ballot. It’s making an argument that there are certain fundamental rights that people have that should never be on a ballot.

Let me read a little bit about that. The right to receive compensation for private property appropriated to public use, the right of access to and protection in the courts of justice, the right of trial by jury. These are the exclusions to what’s allowed to go to the Supreme Court.

Protection from unreasonable search, unreasonable bail and the law marshal, freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of elections. Does that make sense? So the argument is, yes, you can take certain things to the Supreme Court. Here’s the language right here.

Legislative power shall continue to be vested in the general court, but the people reserve to themselves the popular initiative, which is the power of a specified number of voters to submit constitutional amendments and laws to the people for approval or rejection. To the people meaning through a ballot. The exclusion to that are the things I just read.

Putting something like this on the ballot would be akin to putting freedom of speech on the ballot. It’s not going to happen. We’re going to have freedom of speech anyway.

I’ll tell you what I said to our attorney this morning. I said, this would be like putting out a ballot question that says, should we be allowed to all drive 100 miles per hour? Well, if you put that on the ballot, that’s one of those things that would probably pass because people would love to cut down on their commute times, would love to go faster. But is that really smart? Is that really good for all of us to allow people to go 100 miles per hour? No, it’s not.

So there are certain fundamental rights and fundamental things logically that can’t end up on the ballot. And that is the argument that these great plaintiffs are making. And I’ll tell you, I obviously hope they are victorious in their argument in front of the court.

I don’t feel it’s perfect, but what case is perfect? What case is a slam dunk when you’re going into a court of law? But I think they make a very, very good argument, particularly about who is the state to take away the right of a property owner to charge for a residential rental property? Think about the damage that that does to private property rights. And I have more news for you all. Since my last video in early March, millions upon millions of dollars have fled out of Massachusetts.

There’s projects that were going to get started for new construction rental units. They’ve stopped. Investors in other states that were investing in our state and investing in these projects said, I’m not investing the money because I don’t want us to be restricted on what we can charge.

In addition to that, there have been some landlords that have said, forget it. I’m not replacing my roof. I’m not doing this.

I’m not doing that. This is a huge problem. And as I said in my prior videos and on television, rent control will hurt everyone, but especially tenants in the end, because there will be less construction, less units, less upgrades, less maintenance.

If you’re a landlord, why would you have an incentive to fix up your property if you’re being financially restricted from what you can charge? The state should be doing the complete opposite of what they are doing. They should be absolutely making it easier to build. I went through that extensively in my past video.

Decrease the overly burdensome building regulations. Decrease the municipality’s power with all the zoning. The zoning restrictions in the municipalities across Massachusetts are way too much.

They’ve overdone it. They’ve deterred people from building. They’ve made it financially impossible to build things.

So literally, we should be going in that direction, and we’re going in this direction. Not like we’re, eh, we should go there, but we’re kind of going there. No, we are going in the opposite direction of where we should be going.

And several mayors in Massachusetts have spoken up about this, and I want to shout them out. In April, a group of about 12 Massachusetts mayors came out in opposition to the proposal. Worcester, Lawrence, Quincy, Revere, Agawam, Braintree, Everett, Gardner, Holyoke, Methuen, Leominster, and New Bedford.

And I also want to say our governor, Healy, and I don’t agree with her on every subject, and she knows that. But she has come out against this, and I applaud her for doing that because she’s under some political fire for doing that, particularly from her party. But she knows it’s what’s best, so she came out against it.

Mayor Wu, of course, says she’ll be voting for it. She knows that it has imperfections. Mayor Wu has no understanding whatsoever of how this all works, and that’s why she’s for it, and that’s why she and others in her circle continue to do things to make it more difficult.

That is why there is one crane in the sky right now in the city of Boston. One crane. One big project going on.

Seven, eight years ago when Mayor Marty Walsh was there, or before that, Mayor Menino, there were cranes all over the sky. You could see them as far as you could look, and now there’s one crane. Let me get back to the mayors.

What is especially onerous about the proposed ballot question is—oh, who’s this? This is one of the mayors—is that it applies not just to the red-hot Boston market, but everywhere else in the Commonwealth. New Bedford Mayor John Mitchell said in a statement, in Greater New Bedford and other regions where housing developers at times struggled to make their numbers work, it would effectively shut down housing production. Great job, Mayor John Mitchell in New Bedford.

I appreciate that. We serve that part of the state, so I’m happy to see that. Methuen Mayor.

Another area we serve. Mayor D.J. Burgard. Rent control would devalue properties with crushing effects on our budgets that support teachers and education, police, fire, and public safety, and infrastructure maintenance and improvement in our cities and towns.

See, I love that this mayor talked about this, the Mayor of Methuen. He’s absolutely, positively correct. I talked about that in my last video.

I’m not so sure I should be saying, in the end, tenants will be hurt the worst, because actually, in the end, everyone gets hurt. Why? Because the budgets on taxes for properties are going to decrease. The amount of rent, the assessed values of properties are going to decrease.

Everybody will be filing for abatements, as they should, to show their cities and towns that their property is not worth what it once was, which will inherently decrease the property values, decrease the assessed values, decrease the amount of rent coming in. This thing is garbage. I hope the Supreme Judicial Court judges, who are obviously very good at what they do, hence why they ended up there, I hope they take this into account, because sometimes judges get a little too caught up in just specific legalities.

They don’t just think broadly. I hope they hear this. The Attorney General’s Office obviously filed a rebuttal to this complaint that was put in, and they obviously opposed these plaintiffs and opposed the arguments.

Well, of course, that’s what they’re going to do. But I disagree with the Attorney General wholeheartedly. I disagree with Mayor Wu and anyone else that is for this.

If they’re for this, frankly, they shouldn’t be in office. Because if you’re for this, you have no understanding of economics. You have no understanding of housing.

You have no understanding of a lot of things if you are for rent control. That’s all. Let’s root for the court to do the right thing on Wednesday.

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