Proposition 34, a political oddity, aims to impose rent control

The statewide ballot initiative Proposition 34 is a political oddity: It claims to regulate health care, but is really about rent control.

Funded by the California Apartment Association, Proposition 34 proposes restrictions on how “certain healthcare facilities” spend their money, but targets one in particular: the AIDS Healthcare Foundation – the primary funder of Proposition 33, which would allow cities to control rent to expand. The measure is one of 10 statewide proposals on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The Yes on 34 committee, funded primarily by the housing association, said in a statement that unscrupulous health care companies had used a “legal loophole” to funnel money received through a federal prescription drug program to “pet projects that have provided no benefit.” “, diverting patients,” including “spending millions on lobbying and pouring millions more into political campaigns.”

Critics call it “revenge of the landowners.” The AIDS Healthcare Foundation said Proposition 34 was “specifically designed to bring the nonprofit foundation to its knees in retaliation for its sponsorship of Proposition 33.” Landlords sponsoring the measure want to reject its advocacy for rent control — it supported two similar ballot measures that state voters rejected in 2018 and 2020 — and other tenant protection measures, according to the foundation.

The Los Angeles-based foundation operates HIV care and prescription services and affordable housing across the U.S., including 10 in Los Angeles but none in the Bay Area, to combat homelessness. The prescription drug program generates most of the foundation's $2.5 billion in annual revenue and allows it and other groups that serve disadvantaged people to generate revenue through insurance claims for drugs they receive from drug manufacturers Get a discount.

Shaun Bowles, a political science professor at UC Riverside who studies ballot measures, described Proposition 34 as an extreme example of the “obfuscation and deception that is part of politics.”

“It’s a strange way to fight a political fight,” Bowles said. “It is highly misleading. I don’t remember seeing anything like this before.”