California’s Proposition 13 is often advertised to renters as a way to keep rents low. The pitch is that landlords are nice and, when given tax cuts, will pass the savings on to their tenants. This promise was even made explicitly during the initial campaign in the 70s: That was pretty obviously a lie. And of course shortly after Prop 13 passed rents didn’t go down and tenants lashed out with aggressive rent control laws in response. But, despite all that, people today still believe that ...
