Dark money blitz allows landlord groups to lie about Tacoma tenant rights initiative | Opinion

As Tacoma for All’s campaign manager, I am very proud of the broad labor-community coalition we’ve built behind Initiative 1, the Tenant Bill of Rights. We began two years ago as a small grassroots campaign with a bold vision to expand protections for roughly 100,000 Tacoma tenants (according to estimates based on Census data), stabilize our neighborhoods and stem the tide of homelessness.

Today, on the eve of the election, our long list of endorsers unites much of Tacoma civil society, from faith and community leaders to elected officials and over 12,000 union workers. We’ve raised $100,000 from over 400 individual donors, 86% of whom live in Pierce County.

The contrast with our opposition could not be greater.

“No on Tacoma Measure 1” has raised a whopping $365,000 — most of that only reported last week, according to recent PDC filings — to fund a slick disinformation campaign filled with outright lies about Initiative 1. This money is almost entirely from real estate and landlord groups from outside of Tacoma — over 90% of it, according to those filings. More than half — $200,000 — is from the scandal-ridden National Association of REALTORS. Much of the rest is from wealthy landlords and billionaire investors.

Worse still, it’s now clear that “No on Tacoma Measure 1” operated for months as a dark money campaign — apparently to hide their outside funding — in what we believe is a violation of campaign finance laws. Tacoma for All filed an extensive complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission on Wednesday. Our attorney, Dmitri Iglitzen, among the most experienced campaign finance lawyers in the state, called this a “slam dunk” case.

You can read the full complaint on our Tacoma4All.org blog, but I’ll share our Exhibit A with you here:

An Oct. 10 email from the Tacoma Pierce County Realtors Associations claims that “[u]pon learning Tacoma Measure 1 qualified for the November ballot” on June 23rd, TPCAR “sprang into action.” TPCAR’s staff and government affairs committee “connected with business organizations” to “create a coalition to oppose Tacoma Measure 1.” TPCAR “leveraged” their memberships with the National Association of REALTORS and Washington REALTORS, “receiving” $200,000 and $25,000 for their campaign.”

Carried out over a three-month period, none of this activity or contributions were publicly reported as required by the Fair Campaign Practices Act — until Oct. 16. While TPCAR’s careless email is a “smoking gun,” it was an open secret in Tacoma political circles that $250,000 had been raised to fight us, and we’ve been calling them out for it in emails to our supporters since August.

These violations are not just a sideline issue. Clearly, the opposition believes (as we do) that if Tacoma voters were aware that outside corporate interests are trying to buy our election, a big majority would be outraged.

And here’s the real kicker: This outside money is funding a Trump-style disinformation campaign. In early September, it appears an extensive opposition poll was conducted on Tacoma voters, testing multiple lies and divisive fear-based messages against Initiative 1 — many of our members were called for this poll. We documented and answered the worst of these lies then, but clearly, the PAC decided to run with several of them.

Let’s take the two main attack lines in the PAC’s first mailer and TV ad, both flagrant lies:

• Lie 1: Initiative 1 will make it harder to evict “problem tenants” who “engage in criminal activities”
  
  
  
  The eviction protections in Initiative 1 do nothing to change existing laws that empower landlords to evict tenants engaged in criminal or threatening behavior. Only certain evictions for missed rent payments are protected against: during the deadly cold-weather months and during the regular school year for school-age children, their families, and educators.
  
  
  
  
• Lie 2: Initiative 1 will “cost taxpayers” and expand “city bureaucracy”
  
  
  
  Initiate 1 requires large landlords — not the city or taxpayers — to pay relocation assistance if excessive rent hikes force tenants to move out. Many small landlords are exempt. Initiative 1 does not mandate any new costs or enforcement responsibilities for the city of Tacoma.

The truth is that a big majority of landlords operating in Tacoma don’t live here. Outside billionaire investors and corporate landlords already dominate the rental market, according to our analysis of Tacoma rental licenses, and they don’t care about the people of Tacoma. In fact, the entire business model of most real estate investors is to buy low-income housing in “emerging markets” like Tacoma, displace existing residents, do some cheap renovations, and then jack up the rent.

It’s time we made our gritty city work for working people, not outside wealth extractors.

Initiative 1 will help provide some breathing room to 100,000 Tacoma tenants. It will also help stabilize our schools and our neighborhoods, and keep families off the streets.

Vote yes on Citizens Initiative Measure No. 1 by 8 p.m. on Nov. 7.