The summary at the top for tl-dr: If you’re in a state with a Democratic attorney general that hasn’t done so already (or even in Red or Purple States where other Democratic officials in cities can launch these moves), please contact them to encourage for joining other Dem attorney generals in the recent moves and lawsuits against Realpage and price-gougers in the rental market, and in your GOTV and ads, mention these efforts as high priority in your messaging, since they’re wildly popular with voters, even with Republicans. State and Federal bills to target and prevent big corporations from buying up scarce housing (ie., pre-existing housing like single family homes, not building new housing) to convert to rentals and drive up costs, is also wildly popular.
For tl-dr purposes, here is the ground-breaking Propublica article on Realpage, an incredibly corrupt and almost universally hated provider of an algorithm for big corporate landlords to basically do monopoly collusion and cause artificial scarceness in rental housing, driving up the costs of rent (and as consequence, also housing prices in general) when millions of Americans are already struggling with affordable housing. The practice is not only wildly unethical, it’s also flat illegal and in addition to massive class action suits, many Democratic officials are also doing statewide or city-wide suits , that are not only morally justified, they’re also very popular politically. For example, Attorney General Josh Stein in North Carolina, Kris Mayes in Arizona and, Brian Schwalb in Washington DC. We should have every Democratic Attorney General esp in Battleground States starting lawsuits like this and following with news stories, and even in states with Republican officials in that position, Democratic officials in cities and towns can also help launch lawsuits, gathering favorable media attention and provide a huge source of support and new votes for Democrats.
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Just sharing a valuable find from recent canvassing, though sounds like many of you have been finding this too in your own GOTV. We’ve been putting together a GOTV Action Alert for Dem canvassers based on the key economic issue for voters going into November 2024: concrete steps to help bring down cost of living in the US and make things more affordable, especially for essential things like housing costs, healthcare, food, and the cost of college and transportation. President Biden and Democrats have actually been doing many good things on this issue, but messaging still seems to lag behind these accomplishments because most voters don’t seem to be aware. This turns out to be an opportunity because when voters do become aware of what Dems are doing to tackle the cost of living crisis, it’s become one of our strongest assets with both in winning voters to our side (even registered Republicans) but also, in improving voter turnout.
What are these pro-citizen Democratic policies to bring cost of living down? Like we’ve written before, some are relatively well known, like better prosecution of Covid PPP fraud to drain out these asset bubbles—a clear result of terrible Trump admin policy, from when he got rid of the inspectors to help guard against fraud when the pandemic PPP money was given out. And too, there’s the IRA and it’s steps to bring down the cost of major medications, better tax collection from billionaires (who outrageously, pay a tiny percentage in taxes while working and middle classes have to pay a much higher burden.)
And things like better anti-trust and targeting of corporate price-gouging, and, things like Senate Bill 3402, to discourage hedge fund and corporate purchases of scarce housing to turn into rentals, worsen scarceness in homes and make housing costs even worse. Even Democratic attempts at better border security that help to reduce the pressure on housing from uncontrolled irregular migration—including the combined border control-aid bill (mostly Republican crafted, that Democrats wisely supported) that Republicans themselves tanked in February, at Trump’s request. But one of the biggest, most sure-fire vote-getters we’ve been finding in canvassing, has got a lot less atention--the work by Democratic attorney generals in many states to sue and punish Realpage, that corrupt seller of the algorithm to encourage landlord collusion and drive up rent anti-competitively, and similar housing price-gouging.
The results so far have been amazing, with massive support for Democrats going after these price-gougers in the rental market, often over 90%--even among Republican voters. The media often likes to say Americans are so polarized that we’ll split on every issue, but a lot of that’s just gas-lighting—although it may be true for the stupid cultural wars the media likes to divide us on, on economic issues like this, Americans are surprising united in hating the corporate price-gougers and supporting more economical populist policies, including universal healthcare, and especially on costs of essential things like housing, food, transportation and education.
And, Democratic attorney generals have taken the lead in this important fight. Rent and home-buying costs are one of the biggest sources of economical anxiety for Americans, and these costs are often hard to capture in normal inflation stats. The country has a lot of homelessness and increased housing costs are one of the biggest causes of this. While the GOP unsurprising is stuck in corruption and bought by bribes from companies like Realpage, Democrats are taking a strong, ethical and populist stand in fighting these corrupt rental market cartels, that’s also helped to relieve some of the price pressures in housing and reduce inflation, that also helps us all over the ballot.
So it’s important to repeat this fact constantly in our messaging, but just as important, contact other Democratic officials to launch similar moves especially in Swing States, since this is nationwide problem with Realpage and corrupt rental cartels driving up rents all over the country. (Unclear if Attorney General Garland could himself bring such a suit, but if so, it would be a great step to initiate)
In some cases of course Democratic Attorney Generals may already be working on this, but it’s still important to contact them to show support for efforts against Realpage and to let them know if they’re not already doing so, to follow what Attorney Generals like Stein are doing in NC and Maye in AZ, with lawsuits against Realpage and corrupt corporate cartels driving up the cost of rent and housing. Here are some of the most important attorney generals offices to send the word to on this, for any of you living in these, especially in the Purple States:
Josh Kaul in Wisconsin
Dana Nessel in Michigan
Aaron Ford in Nevada
Aaron Frey in Maine
Michelle Henry in Pennsylvania
Philip Weiser in Colorado
And it isn’t just Democratic attorney generals who can help bring these suits against Realpage and corporate rental cartels. Some of the most important Purple States may have Republican attorney generals, but still have important cities or medium sized towns with Democratic officials who can bring these suits just the same. This works to our advantage because it clear differentiates pro-citizen and pro-American Democrats from Republican corruption. The GQP has been bought off by many of these corrupt assholes driving rent prices high and Americans onto the street, so even (at the moment) Republican-controlled states, Democrats can gain major support and oust Republican officials by publicly bringing such suits against Realpage and price-gougers in the rental and housing industry. Along with ballot initiatives on abortion rights and women’s rights to their own bodies, this is one of the areas where we can make major headway and boost turnout in the Purple States, including in Texas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, where Democratic officials can also bring such suits at the local level.
It’s worth mentioning that this subject is part of a broader focus we’ve found to be important in GOTV messaging and canvassing across the country: When talking about Democratic economic politics, focus on steps to reduce cost living and on jobs, don’t talk about GDP, economic growth or “disinflation”. We’ve mentioned this before, but voters simply don’t care about GDP, and boasting about GDP growth just sounds out of touch and tone-deaf to voters, the same with “disinflation” (which just means prices are still going up, if not quite as much then still on top of previous increases that Americans are still struggling to deal with, especially for essential things).
It isn’t just a matter of campaigning—even the mainstream of economists more are pointing out how GDP just stinks as an actual measure of the real economy. Like our own Robert F. Kennedy pointed out, it goes up for all the wrong reasons in the US like housing bubbles and medical bills, and too much is linked to things like those auto-transactions in Wall Street that have little at best connection to real economic activity for Americans. It would actually be better (and certainly win voter support) for GDP to go down modestly if it would also help some of these cost burdens to also go down, that are the real source of economic stress for Americans. Even worse is talk about disinflation or trying to minimize inflation concerns generally—even though it is stabilizing, Americans are stressed by higher cost of living (though as we’ve written before, they do not automatically carry out their frustration at Dems here, it’s general anger at American institutions and the GOP too—something we can capitalize on).
Among the very few times we’ve had voters angrily hang up the phone on us while phone-banking, or slam the door in our faces while canvassing it’s often been college kids—just being real about it—with the syndrome of a little knowledge without getting the big picture, especially on the topic of deflation and price stability. Too often they’ve gotten lectures about how “deflation is bad”, failing to realize that not all forms of deflation are like the “bad kind” we saw in the 1930’s. Sometimes deflation occurs after corporate price-gouging or speculation bubbles in assets, to make things more affordable, and in those cases sustained price decreases are welcome. Especially if they occur after a long period of quite high inflation like we’ve seen since Covid and heavy stimulation by the Federal Reserve and pandemic stimulus.
Instead, Americans measure their economic well being more based on buying power and if their budgets each week cover expenses. It’s a demonstration, yet again of how voters decisions are based mainly on Maslow’s needs hierarchy and concerns that directly affect them. (Although again it’s worth noting, as we have seen in our canvassing, there is very strong support for major Ukraine aid, even among Republicans we talk to and discuss items with.) Again, keep the focus on the concrete and successful things Democrats are doing to bring down costs of living in essential areas, especially as this Diary goes into, in rent and housing. President Biden did this well in the SOTU and this is a proven vote-getter for Democrats, a way we can be populist in the right way and differentiate ourselves from the GQP. We’ll follow with a more general Diary on these Democratic achievements in fighting cost of living, but the topic of this Diary is a great place to start.