VTMBH Article: Body
The best strategy for rent-regulated tenants today lies in unrelenting pressure on Governor George Pataki.
When the final gavel struck in the State Senate chamber in Albany and the 2002 legislative session came to a (not necessarily final) end, Pataki and other rent regulation foes must have thought that they had succeeded in their strategy of letting the clock run out and not taking a position on renewing the rent laws this year.
But from the beginning Pataki and his landlord friends never really understood the Rent 2002 Campaign. They were surprised by the campaign's existence and by its momentum so far. Now they will find that pressure on Pataki will not only continue - it will grow.
Already Pataki has received some unexpected company at many of his appearances in the downstate region this summer as a group that calls itself the "Pataki Hospitality Committee" has been hounding him as part of the Rent 2002 Campaign.
It all started at a landlord fundraiser at the posh Water Club on the Manhattan's East Side and its been growing ever since. It then continued with demonstrations at a Pataki speech before developers at The Grand Hyatt in midtown and in front of Pataki's Manhattan office on Third Avenue.
Picketing Pataki is fun, and it can be effective too, because Pataki needs votes in the downstate region in order to be reelected. He's angered a lot of his upstate conservative base, so he needs additional support in exactly those areas where rent regulation is an issue.
Tenants have got to let Pataki know that our vote won't come cheap. Why should we support someone who has at best ignored us and at worst hurt us with weakening amendments in 1997?
The Rent 2002 Campaign is an effort to renew and strengthen the rent laws one year early, in 2002 - or to extract a commitment to renew the laws from Pataki. The idea of the campaign is to put pressure on legislators and the Governor in a year when all of them are up for reelection.
Before the official launch of our campaign, many veteran political pundits told us that we were crazy to wage such an effort because Albany rarely does anything on time, never mind a year early. However, these same pundits were later surprised when the Assembly passed bills that renewed the rent laws for six years and repealed vacancy decontrol. The strong support we received from downstate Republican State Senators, especially our prime sponsor, Frank Padavan, was also surprising to many Albany observers.
While it is premature to talk about this Campaign in the past tense (the legislature can always come back into special session), seeing that the legislative session has adjourned for the year, it would be helpful to look back at the progress we have made to date.
Besides our legislative successes in the Assembly, the Rent 2002 Campaign did a very good job at raising awareness about this issue in a non-sunset year. We held community meetings in neighborhoods throughout the city and suburbs. We made inroads and new alliances in areas where we had never had an active membership, such as Flatbush, Rockville Center, Rockland County, and Clinton Hill.
We convinced many of New York's largest labor unions to support us. This new support made it possible for us to print over one hundred thousand "Stronger Rent Laws Now" posters.
And we got the media and politicians to start talking about the damage that has been done to affordable housing as a result of vacancy decontrol. Because of the Rent 2002 Campaign, vacancy decontrol is seen as just as important an issue as renewing the laws.
All of this will bode well for us going into next year when the laws actually expire.
However, it would be a mistake for us to let our guard down this year and start looking towards next year. Tenants must keep the pressure on Governor Pataki all summer long and into the fall. He must be made to feel that he'll pay a political price for his inaction on this very important matter.
We should continue to write letters, make phone calls, show up at demonstrations, and encourage our friends and family to do the same. George Pataki is a very shrewd politician who believes in only one thing: getting re-elected. If we make him feel like his election is in jeopardy, we may just get what we want. He felt this way about health care, so he found it necessary to support progressive legislation in that area. He felt this way about gun control, so he did a complete 180 degree turn and supported the most stringent gun-control measure in the country.
So it is not crazy to think that if Pataki feels enough pressure on rent regulation, he may just cave. It's up to us to make him feel it.
When the final gavel struck in the State Senate chamber in Albany and the 2002 legislative session came to a (not necessarily final) end, Pataki and other rent regulation foes must have thought that they had succeeded in their strategy of letting the clock run out and not taking a position on renewing the rent laws this year.
But from the beginning Pataki and his landlord friends never really understood the Rent 2002 Campaign. They were surprised by the campaign's existence and by its momentum so far. Now they will find that pressure on Pataki will not only continue - it will grow.
Already Pataki has received some unexpected company at many of his appearances in the downstate region this summer as a group that calls itself the "Pataki Hospitality Committee" has been hounding him as part of the Rent 2002 Campaign.
It all started at a landlord fundraiser at the posh Water Club on the Manhattan's East Side and its been growing ever since. It then continued with demonstrations at a Pataki speech before developers at The Grand Hyatt in midtown and in front of Pataki's Manhattan office on Third Avenue.
Picketing Pataki is fun, and it can be effective too, because Pataki needs votes in the downstate region in order to be reelected. He's angered a lot of his upstate conservative base, so he needs additional support in exactly those areas where rent regulation is an issue.
Tenants have got to let Pataki know that our vote won't come cheap. Why should we support someone who has at best ignored us and at worst hurt us with weakening amendments in 1997?
The Rent 2002 Campaign is an effort to renew and strengthen the rent laws one year early, in 2002 - or to extract a commitment to renew the laws from Pataki. The idea of the campaign is to put pressure on legislators and the Governor in a year when all of them are up for reelection.
Before the official launch of our campaign, many veteran political pundits told us that we were crazy to wage such an effort because Albany rarely does anything on time, never mind a year early. However, these same pundits were later surprised when the Assembly passed bills that renewed the rent laws for six years and repealed vacancy decontrol. The strong support we received from downstate Republican State Senators, especially our prime sponsor, Frank Padavan, was also surprising to many Albany observers.
While it is premature to talk about this Campaign in the past tense (the legislature can always come back into special session), seeing that the legislative session has adjourned for the year, it would be helpful to look back at the progress we have made to date.
Besides our legislative successes in the Assembly, the Rent 2002 Campaign did a very good job at raising awareness about this issue in a non-sunset year. We held community meetings in neighborhoods throughout the city and suburbs. We made inroads and new alliances in areas where we had never had an active membership, such as Flatbush, Rockville Center, Rockland County, and Clinton Hill.
We convinced many of New York's largest labor unions to support us. This new support made it possible for us to print over one hundred thousand "Stronger Rent Laws Now" posters.
And we got the media and politicians to start talking about the damage that has been done to affordable housing as a result of vacancy decontrol. Because of the Rent 2002 Campaign, vacancy decontrol is seen as just as important an issue as renewing the laws.
All of this will bode well for us going into next year when the laws actually expire.
However, it would be a mistake for us to let our guard down this year and start looking towards next year. Tenants must keep the pressure on Governor Pataki all summer long and into the fall. He must be made to feel that he'll pay a political price for his inaction on this very important matter.
We should continue to write letters, make phone calls, show up at demonstrations, and encourage our friends and family to do the same. George Pataki is a very shrewd politician who believes in only one thing: getting re-elected. If we make him feel like his election is in jeopardy, we may just get what we want. He felt this way about health care, so he found it necessary to support progressive legislation in that area. He felt this way about gun control, so he did a complete 180 degree turn and supported the most stringent gun-control measure in the country.
So it is not crazy to think that if Pataki feels enough pressure on rent regulation, he may just cave. It's up to us to make him feel it.