Election outcomes matter! Yet in this year’s election, voter turnout was anemic at best. In my hometown of Waterbury, 73% of registered voters stayed at home one election day! Turnout percentages were even lower in many towns. One must ask the question, WHY?
If you happen to own, manage, or rent apartment units, this past session at the Connecticut General Assembly should have been an eye-opener. It seems like those activists that seek to derail the housing market threw everything at housing providers including the kitchen sink and toilet bowl. With proposals including rent control, eviction record sealing and a moratorium on evictions from December through March 1st, the rental housing providers were under attack.
Who led this attack? It was clear from posting on the internet and social media that it was led by the CT Socialists of America. Fortunately, there were many legislators that don’t believe in “Robbin Hood Politics” and people should work hard and save to get ahead and not try to redistribute the wealth that others have sacrificed to achieve.
The housing providers need to understand that things will get worse unless they get organized and take direct action by getting involved in the legislative process at the Capitol and becoming politically active when it comes to elections.
The CT Property Owners Alliance has been a leading voice for housing providers since 1996 and is now paving the way for housing providers to become more engaged and defend themselves. In January, the CTPOA will be promoting a “Super-PAC” called the Property Owner Defense League (PODL) in Connecticut and intends to help those legislators that supported the housing provider community in their effort to get re-elected. The PAC will also seek to target one extreme legislator that supports the Socialist agenda and seek to help them retire early from the Legislature.
While there are many legislators that lean hard left, it will be impossible to go after all of them, but we intend to send a clear message that this is America, a country build on freedoms and property rights, and we will not tolerate a radical political agenda that has never worked anywhere it’s been tried.
Here’s a bit of info about Political Action Committees.
- Political Action Committee (PAC) — A popular term for a political committee organized for the purpose of raising and spending money to elect and defeat candidates. Most PACs represent business, labor, or ideological interests.
- Super PACs (independent expenditure only political committees) are committees that may receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions and other PACs for the purpose of financing independent expenditures and other independent political activity and cannot coordinate their efforts with candidates.
- An independent expenditure is an expenditure for a communication that expressly advocates for the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.
- RPAC vs. PODL -Unlike a super PAC, the RPAC is a traditional PAC with a $5,000 per person cap on donations and cannot accept money from corporations or unions. On the other hand, RPAC may contribute directly to a politician or political party, whereas super PACs are limited to spending independently of such campaigns.
- Super PACs do not fight issues, only can influences the outcomes of elections.
In January, we will begin a series of fundraising events to support the Property Owner Defense League’s effort to protect the housing providers from this radical political agenda. Housing Providers must get involved as it’s clear they face a large attack as seen in this quote.
“ Democrats held a super-majority this session and had the opportunity to boldly address this emergency, despite obstruction by the Republican minority. Tenants and our allies demanded a rent cap and good cause eviction protections to give us immediate relief and stability while we tackled the housing emergency head-on. Hundreds of us stayed up all night at the Capitol to testify about the urgency of taking on a housing system that’s unaffordable, unsafe, and unfair; rooted in legacies of racism and exclusion; and that is displacing many of us from our homes and communities.
We were out on the streets of our cities and towns, in our community spaces, and in our apartment buildings talking to our neighbors. Polling showed the vast majority of voters agreed we should stabilize rent and take action to address exclusionary zoning. This was the chance to cap the rent, empower tenants, and begin to shift the immense resources and wealth of our state towards guaranteeing affordable and stable housing for all.
The tenant-led housing justice movement is here to stay, and next year our movement will be even stronger. We will organize in our buildings and cities to protect each other as we continue to fight for housing stability for all, so that all of us can put down roots in the communities we love.” – June 8, 2023, Co-Authored by CT-DSA and CT Tenants Union
Note: This blog post was originally published as the Publisher’s Message in the November edition of CT Real Estate Today.
Interested in joining the Property Owner’s Defense League? CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.
