Tacoma’s game-changing tenant rights initiative will win a nail-biter. What now? | Opinion
There was no hesitation. The declaration of victory came fast.
When Pierce County election results dropped last Thursday — showing Initiative Measure 1 in the lead — supporters of Tacoma’s Tenant Bill of Rights wasted little time popping the champagne.
Rightly so. The math spoke for itself.
Initiative 1 trailed by 556 votes on election night, but the deficit it faced on Nov. 7 was no match for the late surge of leftward ballots yet to be tabulated.
Pierce County’s latest election results, released Tuesday, simply confirmed what had become obvious. The tally showed the initiative passing by 361 votes, with only 100 ballots left to tabulate countywide. Ballot measures aren’t subject to mandatory recounts, noted Pierce County Elections Manager Kyle Haugh, but even if they were, Initiative 1 wouldn’t trigger one based on where things currently stand.
While an unknown number of post-marked stragglers are expected to trickle in and, as of Tuesday, there were 186 Tacoma ballots in the process of being challenged and cured, it’s not going to matter:
Tacoma’s Initiative 1 will win. I’ve seen enough.
Ready or not, it’s time to focus on what happens next.
“We’re thrilled. I think this is a historic victory with sweeping implications for the state,” Ann Dorn, a Tacoma for All spokesperson, told The News Tribune late last week. “We believe working families made their voices heard.”
Opinions differ, of course. In the same breath, Dorn noted that the tenant rights initiative passed “in the face of incredible opposition” — a pushback largely chalked up to landlord lobbyists and corporate interests.
It’s the kind of broad, politically advantageous characterization that savvy, successful campaigns rely on, designed to make the choice for voters stark.
Rest assured it went both ways. As often as those opposed to Initiative 1 were described as greed-fueled monsters, its supporters faced no shortage of erroneous labels, regularly cast as outside agitators from Seattle or communists in search of a handout.
Now that the election is over there’s no sense clinging to the nonsense.
The truth is, we don’t have much choice.
Setting aside the likely legal challenges for a moment, all the passage of Tacoma’s tenant rights initiative will really do is reshuffle the deck and enact a handful of new rules. It’s also just one of many dominoes in play. How its provisions are applied in real life — and how we react — are variables we get to control, which is important to keep in mind.
Like many, I have concerns about the policy at the heart of Tacoma’s Initiative 1. I haven’t been shy about it.
From the start, I’ve acknowledged the issues the citizen-led effort is designed to address are real. I’ve also argued that everything the initiative includes — from the relocation assistance to the eviction prevention measures — are protections renters in Tacoma deserve.
Still, the initiative’s approach feels unnecessarily and indiscriminately vindictive, placing too much of the burden of systemic failures squarely on landlords, no matter who they are.
I’m afraid it could make things worse, at least in the short term. More important, I’m fully convinced we can do better.
The silver lining? It’s right there, hiding in plain sight, obscured by contentiousness and heightened by our political divisions:
Even a forced hand presents an opportunity.
Instead of retreating to our foxholes or rehashing settled debates, we have a chance to collectively build a fairer and more equitable rental housing market — starting now
Using the framework the initiative has provided as a starting point, we can still do almost anything. There’s a lot to be said for that.
What do I mean?
While it would inspire valid cries of hypocrisy from renters who have grown tired of watching their elected leaders hem and haw in the face of a crisis, there’s nothing stopping the Tacoma City Council from crafting new policies that would help offset the hit small local landlords will likely take, if they so desire.
We could also fully fund a strong, meaningful, city-led eviction prevention program to help people struggling to pay rent, designed to intervene and head off the doomsday scenario of landlords forced to stomach months of nonpayment without any recourse or assistance. We could even call it a “win-win.”
Just as easily, we could proactively work to prevent subtle forms of discrimination that might arise as an unintended consequence of the initiative. Or we could enact new, targeted incentives to prevent a mass small landlord exodus.
Better yet, we could do all of the above. The options are limitless.
In fact, a week after the election, only this much is certain:
Tacoma has spent the better part of a year forcing people into boxes — landlords and renters — but no one is a stereotype, and it’s time to turn the page.
This isn’t about cliche hand-holding or kumbaya sessions. It’s about a lesson confirmed by history many times over:
Progress and change don’t happen overnight, with one vote or one decision; it’s an evolution.
There is no end and the game is never over — even in the aftermath of a hard-fought election.
Tacoma voters demanded something different. We know that much. And we know why.
What happens now is up to all of us.
The ultimate impact of Tacoma’s controversial and contentious tenant rights initiative is to be determined.
