Opposition Research

1980s: landlord/apartment-owner organizing, protest, and litigation

Landlords organized into loosely knit coalitions in the 1980s, notably the “Action” landlord advocacy group (later Action Apartment Association, led first by Carl Lambert and later Herb Balter) and the Foundation for the Defense of Free Enterprise VERIFIED FACT (LA Times, “Landlords Raise Voices in Protest,” 1988). On a single day in May 1988, roughly 150 Santa Monica/West Hollywood landlords rallied at Santa Monica City Hall carrying signs reading “Help the needy, not the greedy” and “Soviet Monica, rent controlled,” confronting rent-control author City Attorney Robert Myers directly VERIFIED FACT. The Foundation for the Defense of Free Enterprise proposed phasing out rent control by 2000 in exchange for a homeless fund; Councilman Dennis Zane called the proposal “a masquerade” [VERIFIED FACT / COMPETING EXPLANATION].

The 1990 ballot war. Landlords qualified Proposition U (full vacancy decontrol on voluntary vacancy); SMRR’s Council majority countered with Proposition W (limited, bedroom-based increases well below market). Both measures failed, with Proposition W losing by the narrowest of margins — 15,248 (49.7%) to 15,408 (50.3%) — while SMRR’s Kelly Olsen simultaneously unseated longtime landlord-aligned incumbent Christine Reed VERIFIED FACT (LA Times, Nov. 15, 1990). Local opposition failed throughout this period largely because a 72–80% renter electorate allowed SMRR to simply frame any ballot fight as an existential threat to rent control, and SMRR’s practice of offering its own softer counter-measures split and blunted decontrol drives SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION.

Litigation, mostly unsuccessful for landlords, up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Fisher v. City of Berkeley (U.S. Supreme Court, 1986, 475 U.S. 260) upheld rent control 7–1 against a Sherman Antitrust Act challenge, becoming the leading precedent shielding California rent control generally, including Santa Monica’s VERIFIED FACT (Justia, Fisher v. Berkeley). Nash v. City of Santa Monica (California Supreme Court, 1984, 37 Cal.3d 97) upheld the removal-permit requirement against a landlord’s forced-continuation-of-business claim VERIFIED FACT (Justia, Nash). Santa Monica Pines, Ltd. v. Rent Control Board (California Supreme Court, 1984, 35 Cal.3d 858) rejected a landlord’s vested-rights claim to convert apartments to condos VERIFIED FACT. Schnuck v. City of Santa Monica (9th Circuit, 1991, 935 F.2d 171) upheld the ordinance against due-process and takings claims VERIFIED FACT. SMRR’s own history claims the law was upheld “on nine separate occasions” at the state appellate and supreme court levels, and landlords brought “hundreds of lawsuits” in the early years, with most significant rulings favoring the Board [VERIFIED FACT / Organization’s own claim on the exact count]. Landlords lost nearly every 1980s constitutional challenge, meaning the successful path around SMRR ran through Sacramento, not the courts SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION.

State preemption: opposition finally wins by bypassing the local electorate (1985–1999)

The Ellis Act (1985) let owners exit the rental business entirely, effectively neutralizing the Nash removal-permit power; nearly 2,000 (later documented as 2,046 net) Santa Monica controlled units have since been removed under it VERIFIED FACT (SMDP, “The legacy of rent control”). The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act (AB 1164, 1995; full effect Jan. 1, 1999), authored by Assemblyman Phil Hawkins with Senator Jim Costa leading the Senate push, forced vacancy decontrol on Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Berkeley, East Palo Alto, and Cotati; Action Apartment Association president Herb Balter declared, “After 16 years of being held hostage, we are finally free” VERIFIED FACT (LA Times, “Legislature Deals Blow,” 1995). By New Year’s Day 1999, city officials said roughly 3,000 apartments had already become unaffordable to the poor due to post-1996 increases VERIFIED FACT (LA Times, “Era of Rent Control Comes to End,” 1999). State-level opposition succeeded where local efforts failed precisely because a statewide Republican-led Legislature and Governor Pete Wilson were not subject to Santa Monica’s renter-majority electorate — bypassing SMRR’s local dominance entirely SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION.

1990s–2000s: pro-development/business-coalition opposition

By 1990, development had edged rent control as the city’s top political issue, pitting pro-development against slow-growth factions VERIFIED FACT (LA Times, “Development Edges Rent Control,” 1990). Business owners chafed under the living-wage ordinance and strict development limits, and a 2002 business-backed referendum invalidated the living-wage law VERIFIED FACT. The Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC), a 501(c)(4) slow-growth group, formed in 2005–2006 in reaction to a proposed ~1-million-square-foot Macerich/Santa Monica Place expansion, forcing the plan’s abandonment VERIFIED FACT (SMCLC mission statement). Critically, SMCLC and the “no-growth” faction were, until 2020, enabled by SMRR rather than opposed to it: no anti-development candidate won election without SMRR’s endorsement across this period (Genser, Olsen, McKeown, Bloom, Feinstein, Winterer, Himmelrich), and Mike Feinstein specifically lost in 2004 when he ran without SMRR’s backing VERIFIED FACT (Healthy City Local, 2024). Frank Gruber’s pointed critique holds that SMRR, “a purportedly progressive, renter-oriented organization[,] promoted a homeowners’ association agenda and contributed to our chronic housing shortage… Arguably, SMRR created the no-growth movement” — a characterization Denny Zane rejects, saying SMRR “never had a political alliance with the Chamber or others in the real estate and development community” COMPETING EXPLANATION.

2010s–2020s: reform slates, the 2020 revolt, and realignment

SMRR’s voting bloc “did not lose an election until 2020” VERIFIED FACT (The Samohi, 2024). In November 2020, the “Change Slate” (Phil Brock, Oscar de la Torre, Christine Parra) ousted three SMRR-backed incumbents — the most incumbents defeated in one Santa Monica election in 26 years — attributable to a “perfect storm” of COVID-19, rising homelessness/crime, and the Memorial Day 2020 Promenade looting (roughly 400 arrests), discontent SMRR “did not directly cause” but was blamed for [VERIFIED FACT / SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION] (LA Times enewspaper, 2020). SMRR did not lose its outright majority until July 2021, after Kevin McKeown’s resignation allowed a divided Council to appoint non-SMRR Lana Negrete. By 2024 the opposition consolidated into “Safer Santa Monica” (Brock, de la Torre, business owners John Putnam and Vivian Roknian), backed by SMCLC and business groups — a genuine anti-SMRR, business-plus-slow-growth alliance for the first time VERIFIED FACT (Healthy City Local, “Ellis Raskin” tag). SMRR nonetheless swept all four seats in November 2024 despite being outspent by the “Safer” PACs, attributable to its decades-old brand recognition among renters, a well-oiled organizational apparatus, and durable coalition allies (Democratic Club, UNITE HERE) SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION.

Modern litigation series (Action Apartment Association)

Action Apartment Assn. v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd. (California Court of Appeal, 2001, 94 Cal.App.4th 587) reversed for landlords on a takings claim over required 3% interest on security deposits, a narrow but real landlord win VERIFIED FACT (Justia). Action Apartment Assn. v. City of Santa Monica (California Supreme Court, 2007, S129448) produced a split result on litigation-privilege preemption of the Tenant Harassment Ordinance VERIFIED FACT. Action Apartment Assn. v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd. (9th Circuit, 2011, 05-56533) reaffirmed the 1979 ordinance’s validity per Schnuck. Landlord litigation shifted over time from broad constitutional attacks (which uniformly failed) to narrow, targeted challenges on specific regulatory mechanics, where opponents occasionally won on the margins without dislodging rent control itself SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION.

Editorial and press positions

Landlord opponents coined “People’s Republic of Santa Monica” and “Soviet Monica,” labels that recur across coverage from the 1980s through the 2000s VERIFIED FACT. The Santa Monica Lookout provides largely neutral-to-skeptical framing of SMRR’s “machine” and “stranglehold” via critics’ quotes; the Santa Monica Daily Press is comparatively sympathetic to rent control’s affordability role while still cataloging its downsides; Frank Gruber’s commentary (The Healthy City Local, plus an academic essay) is the most sustained left critique of SMRR, arguing it drifted from a “have-nots” agenda toward protecting the “already comfortable”; and the Los Angeles Times opinion pages in recent years have run critical letters on rent control’s role in the statewide housing crisis SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION. A single, dated LA Times institutional editorial explicitly endorsing or condemning SMRR by name was not located — the Times material found is news reporting and opinion letters, not a masthead editorial specifically on SMRR OPEN QUESTION.

Cross-cutting synthesis on beneficiaries and opposition

The clearest, best-quantified beneficiaries of SMRR policy are long-term rent-controlled tenants (a median gap of roughly $1,500/month below market) and the nonprofit affordable-housing ecosystem the city funds, principally CCSM. Benefits to unions, city employees, and service nonprofits are real but more politically contingent — the living-wage ordinance was repealed by referendum. Developers were mostly adversaries who benefited only selectively and, increasingly, via state mandates rather than SMRR’s own choices. Opposition to SMRR failed locally for four decades because the renter super-majority made rent control a near-unbeatable turnout issue; opponents succeeded only at the state level (bypassing local voters via the Ellis Act and Costa-Hawkins) and in the anomalous 2020 election, driven by pandemic/crime/homelessness discontent rather than a durable ideological realignment — as SMRR’s 2024 sweep subsequently demonstrated SUPPORTED INTERPRETATION.