Breaking: Rent Control Is Off The November Ballot

In a decision issued this morning, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Initiative Petition 25-21, titled “An Initiative Petition to Protect Tenants by Limiting Rent Increases,” was improperly certified by Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and will not appear on the November ballot. The SJC ruled that, while the aims of the petition are largely secular, the presence in the petition of an express exemption for rental units in facilities “operated solely for . . . religious . . . purposes” runs afoul of Art. 48 of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution, which bars a petition that “relates to religion, religious practices or religious institutions.” Justice Kafker wrote a concurring opinion expressing his view that the majority should have decided the case on narrower grounds and suggesting that a petition that exempted facilities run by nonprofit institutions, as opposed to religious institutions, would likely pass constitutional muster.

This decision comes amid the real estate industry’s vigorous, virtually unanimous opposition to the petition, which the industry predicted would both inhibit the development of new rental housing and deter landlords from maintaining and investing in the existing rental stock, thus exacerbating the current affordability crisis.