The statewide ballot initiative Proposition 34 is a political oddity: It claims to manage health care, but is actually about rent control.
Funded by the California Apartment Association, Proposition 34 proposes restrictions on how “certain health care facilities” spend their money, but targets one particularly: the AIDS Healthcare Foundation – the first funder of Proposition 33, which might allow cities to regulate rent to expand. The measure is one in all 10 statewide proposals on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The Yes on 34 committee, funded primarily by the housing association, said in a press release that unscrupulous health care corporations had used a “legal loophole” to funnel money received through a federal prescription drug program to “pet projects that have provided no benefit.” “, diverting patients,” including “spending millions on lobbying and pouring millions more into political campaigns.”
Critics call it “revenge of the landowners.” The AIDS Healthcare Foundation said Proposition 34 was “specifically designed to bring the nonprofit foundation to its knees” “in retaliation for its sponsorship of Proposition 33.” Landlords sponsoring the measure need to reject its advocacy for rent control — it supported two similar ballot measures that state voters rejected in 2018 and 2020 — and other tenant protection measures, in response to the muse.
The Los Angeles-based foundation operates HIV care and prescription services and inexpensive housing across the U.S., including 10 in Los Angeles but none within the Bay Area, to combat homelessness. The prescription drug program generates most of the muse's $2.5 billion in annual revenue and allows it and other groups that serve disadvantaged people to generate revenue through insurance claims for drugs they receive from drug manufacturers Get a reduction.
Shaun Bowles, a political science professor at UC Riverside who studies ballot measures, described Proposition 34 as an extreme example of the “obfuscation and deception that is part of politics.”
“It’s a strange way to fight a political fight,” Bowles said. “It is highly misleading. I don’t remember seeing anything like this before.”
Under the proposal, health care providers which have spent greater than $100 million over a 10-year period on anything apart from direct patient care and in addition operate multifamily properties could be required to “report at least 500 serious health and safety violations.” Spend 98% of federal prescription drug discount program revenue on direct patient care. These very specific requirements point to the AIDS Foundation.
California's political donations transparency laws allow voters to trace the cash, see who’s supporting ballot measures and understand the intentions behind them.
The The California Apartment Association committed $29.4 million to pass Proposition 34. And the California Association of Realtors donated $250,000 to support Prop 34, state data shows.
The The AIDS Healthcare Foundation provided roughly $1.2 million within the fight against Proposition 34.
The foundation spent $37 million in support of rent control Proposition 33, while the California Apartment Association contributed $34.5 million in support.
In a Public Policy Institute of California poll of California residents in late August and early September, 53% of respondents said they’d vote “yes” on Prop 34 and 43% said they’d vote “no.”
But Bowles said the confusing nature of a measure that affects each pharmaceuticals and multifamily housing could lead on some voters to reject it.
“There's a certain tendency,” Bowles said, “for people to say, 'No, I don't know what I'm voting for.' “
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