A Case For Kamala Harris-- And A Case Against Her Rent Relief Act

by Bob Lynch,
@lynchpinL
Democratic political strategist

Kamala Harris had another great afternoon proving to be one of the brightest stars on an otherwise fairly underwhelming Senate Judiciary Committee.

Today’s agenda? To find out whether or not William Barr will become the only Attorney General in the history of the United States of America to actively engage in the cover up of blatant treason from the highest levels of the Oval Office in two separate presidential administrations.

The first time, Iran Contra, was barely even mentioned which is a little odd seeing as it sowed the seeds of two of the most pressing issues facing our country today: Mike Pompeo’s quest to bring about The Rapture via war with Iran and the destabilization of Central America which directly led to the refugee crisis on our southern border.

Or maybe it wasn’t that odd? After all, even some of my favorite people in the media spent a good part of last month telling me that George HW Bush wrote really nice letters and wore funny socks.

Since we’ve already decided that "likability" is going to be a big theme in 2020 let me just get it out of the way that I like Kamala Harris. I don’t know her so I don’t like, like her like her, but she has good likability. Unless of course you are an old white Republican, who shudders at the thought of having to explain yourself to a woman, and further squirms incredulously when she happens to be black.

As a former prosecutor and Attorney General of California, Kamala was clearly up to the task. Whoever Barr’s sparring partner was in the warm up to this hearing should be promptly fired and banished from politics forever.

Because of her unique skill set, Harris was very effective in addressing a few key areas: The border, criminal justice reform, and the opioid epidemic, all of which are interrelated.

The sound bites pretty much created themselves and people will no doubt focus on her pointing out that Barr hadn’t even seen a port of entry in three decades and that the War On Drugs, in which he played a major role, was “an abject failure.” It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that the GOP wants to turn all of the clocks back. They pretty much shouted it from the rooftops with Make America Great AGAIN?

With a very crowded field going into the Democratic Primary, carving out a niche will be both difficult and crucial for any of the 20-30 candidates expected to run.

It is impossible to imagine a scenario in which we achieve comprehensive immigration or criminal justice reform or make a sizeable dent in the opioid epidemic anytime before 2020. These will be serious issues that American voters will he focused on in the next election, rightfully so by the way.

Kamala is well suited and well positioned to take the lead on all of these. She will no doubt be attacked from the left flank of the Democratic Party, as anyone even remotely associated with the criminal justice system will inevitably be anyway. Tough to see Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julían Castro, Bernie Sanders, or Joe Biden gaining much traction with that approach. Good luck arguing about the unfairness and racial component of the failed War on Drugs with a black woman who saw it all first hand in charge of America’s largest state.

Which is why it makes her intense focus on the Rent Relief Act all the more puzzling. She already has a well-rounded portfolio and can continue to add natural components to it as she did today with her mention of the $3.3BN a year private prison industry. Living in Miami always makes me long for the mountains of my childhood and that got me thinking about one of the fundamental rules: When you get out over your skis, you lose control, and you fall.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are far better suited to speaking on economic populism and appealing to the working class while taking shots at the corporate "elites." Joe Biden will be given a pass by the media on his blue collar relatability schtick, that everyone just assumes will shore up the rust belt that Hillary struggled in. Beto knows how to skateboard, so why go down this route right out of the gate?

First let’s take a look at what exactly the Rent Relief Act is...

The Rent Relief Act was introduced on July 19, 2018 by Kamala Harris (CA), Diane Feinstein (CA), Richard Blumenthal (CT), and Maggie Hassan (NH). This particular piece of legislation strangely mirrors a bill introduced by the former number 3 member of the Democratic House of Representatives, Joe Crowley, who was recently handed his walking papers by Bronx and Queens voters who preferred 29-year old former bartender, waitress and political activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The basic gist of the idea is that the Federal Government will establish refundable tax credits, on a sliding scale, to anyone earning less than $100-125K (depending on location) who also spends greater than 30% on rent (including utilities). Sounds great right?

I’m sure we can all agree that affordable housing is one of the most crucial issues of our time. According to the official Harris press release, the percentage of Americans who are "severely rent burdened," which is defined by families who spend more than 50% of their monthly income on rent, jumped 42% between 2001 and 2015. The total number of American renters who spend at least 30% of their monthly income on rent stands at 38%!

Naturally, this is a huge issue for both Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris seeing as 4/5 most expensive cities in the entire country are in California: San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The other is New York City, no doubt the reason why the Connecticut suburbs got Dick Blumenthal’s attention. Still scratching my head as to the relevance in New Hampshire.

When you listen to pundits weigh the Presidential, and even Vice Presidential prospects, of any of the endless stream of candidates you often hear about, their path to victory requires a significant pickup in either the Rust Belt, the Sun Belt, or both. Notice that none of the aforementioned cities are in either.

Unaffordable rents are largely an urban problem where Democrats are strong, not a rural one, where they are not. You know what else is more prevalent in the rural areas of the country? Misogyny and especially racism. Given the stakes of the 2020 election, Kamala Harris will be subjected to both unlike any other candidate in the history of our country. Imagine a Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton hybrid from California who went to Howard University (by the way, thoughts and prayers for the Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes)… Kamala leading with an issue that will immediately polarize the urban/rural divide, because this will be framed as red states subsidizing high rent blue states regardless of the facts, doesn’t seem like leading with strength.

We also need to address the cold hard economic facts about this bill. It will incentivize landlords to RAISE rents. The 30% cutoff number will become the new base line. This is effectively a subsidy to landowners to keep prices inflated along the same vein as federal financial aid led to massive college tuition increases. It is a boon to Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds (largely located in New York/Connecticut/California) who capitalized on the Financial Crisis by scooping up massive blocks of homes, levering them up via securitization programs, and renting them out to the very people who could no longer afford to be home owners. Higher rents coupled with backended tax credits do not improve monthly cash flow for cash strapped rental households and does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental component about housing prices, which is supply vs demand.

The dirty little secret about affordable housing is that it is largely a local issue. Even people with the best intentions towards affordable housing do not want it in their own backyard. They know it is bad for business and bad for property values. And who sets the tone for this via planning and zoning commissions and requirements?? Local and state governments, who are wildly enthusiastic of the prospect of punting all of this responsibility to the Federal Government, and not having to make any difficult decisions at home.

This is the perfect solution to provide the optics of housing becoming more "affordable" on the surface while also ensuring that existing property values, i.e. the tax base, won’t go down. No wonder Joe Crowley was pushing it and no wonder AOC, who by the way, got her ~15k primary votes largely from White College Educated Millennials in the Bronx and Queens, that had long since been priced out of Brooklyn, let alone Manhattan, beat him.

When we look at West Coast and East Coast metro area housing we find two main industries that have contributed to the rise in home values over the past two decades. Finance and Tech. The Democrats have done a decent job of walking the tightrope on the Financial Industry, although cracks could develop depending on how Sanders and Warren do, but they have not even begun to start coming to terms with the massive boom that came from Silicon Valley. Even liberal bastions like Seattle are grappling with these same issues as a result of Microsoft and Amazon contributing to a rising tide that didn’t, in fact, lift all boats.

The tech industry has become the Democratic Party’s equivalent to the GOP’s problem with being beholden to Big Energy.

There is simply no solution to the housing crisis, that was brought about by the gentrification from the tech boom, that can be solved without cannibalizing the very voters the Democratic Party relies on. Don’t even get me started on Chuck Schumer’s daughter working for Facebook…

I’m reminded of an old quote about Beatles fans: "when I was young, John was my favorite, as I grew older, I identified more with Paul."

Go ask a mom with a stroller in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn how she feels about adding more low income housing in HER neighborhood…

Seeing as this started as a post about Kamala Harris, we won’t let it get too off topic, but how Dems handle the tech industry can lead to an almost infinite number of pandora’s boxes from privacy issues, to anti-trust legislation, to energy consumption, and everything in between. My worry for Dems is that the bulk of the emerging leaders, whether it is Californians Kamala Harris, Ted Lieu, Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff, or Seattle based Pramila Jayapal, or even dark horse AOC, there is a seriously inconvenient truth here that needs to be reckoned with:

Big Tech needs to be reined in and we are facing an affordable housing crisis. How can you address both in the same exact parts of the country while simultaneously bringing the so called "fly over" states on board too??

I can’t even pretend to have those answers and I doubt Kamala Harris does either. That’s why I prefer she sticks to the stuff she is really really good at instead of going down paths she doesn’t understand just because they may help her donors or sound good. Again, I say all of this because I like her.