California voters reject 2 housing-affordability measures

Californians voted on two housing-related measures Tuesday — Propositions 5 and 33 — and rejected both, according to respective Associated Press race calls. Still, many voters cited affordability as a major issue in the state. 

Proposition 33 would’ve rolled back state-wide restrictions on rent control. Proposition 5 would’ve made it easier for local governments to approve bonds for affordable housing, among other projects. 

Mary-Beth Moylan is a law professor at the University of the Pacific. She said the rejection is a sign voters think lawmakers should solve the problem. 

“Maybe the messaging is — we want there to be changes, we want there to be more affordable housing,” she said. “But we want the Legislature to figure out how to do it on its own and not involve the voters.”

But she added that could be bad news for local officials tasked with addressing affordability in their communities. 

“The fact that these two measures didn't pass means that those people will not have, really, the tools that they need to get anything done,” she said. 

Moylan said attack ads probably played a large part in the no votes, too. 

“There were effective campaigns that had people not really understanding what both of them would do and what the consequences of them would be,” she said. 

She also said that when voters don’t understand a measure, they tend to vote it down. 

“Which I'm not saying is a bad thing,” she added. “Because we probably shouldn't be voting for things that we don't understand.” 

Either way, Moylan said that voters didn’t see these as viable solutions to California’s housing affordability problem.