Kamala Harris’s Rent Subsidy Would Help Landlords, Not Renters

By Jibran Khan

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) has proposed a subsidy for renters, responding no doubt to the skyrocketing rents in the Bay Area. The sheer cost of living there has made it difficult for companies to attract talent; indeed, rents in faraway suburbs are priced like downtown rents elsewhere. This is a very real problem, and its recognition on the national stage is not unwelcome. But Harris’s subsidy won’t improve the situation, and could even make things worse by drawing attention away from actual solutions.

The Bay Area’s rent crisis is driven by a drastic shortage in housing. Strict rent control in San Francisco and “NIMBY” (not in my backyard) zoning policies have ensured that the area constructs only a fraction of the housing it needs. The San Francisco metro area added 373,000 new jobs between 2012 and 2017, but it allowed the construction of only 58,000 new units of housing. And there is considerable lag time to start a housing project: State watchdogs estimate that a building permit in San Francisco takes well over a year to approve; this is about twice as long as the approval time in inland California and triple the time it takes in the rest of the country. Should the permit run against zoning rules, it takes even longer.

Per Lawrence Yun, an economist who studies housing trends, the norm is for one housing unit to be built for every two jobs created. In the San Francisco area, there is less than one unit built for every six jobs created.

As a result, San Francisco isn’t just a city with high cost of living; it’s a wealthy city in the world’s richest country where homelessness is rife. Even if rents in the area were considerably lower, there still would not be enough housing for everyone. If the high rents were caused simply by landlords’ dogged insistence on charging them, there would be an excess supply of housing, which there is not.

The lack of housing also keeps people out of the area entirely, denying both them and their potential Bay Area employers the chance to work together and create economic value. Telecommuting is increasingly viable, but as the economist Tyler Cowen has pointed out, there are great benefits to working together in person in the way that a major city affords — a multiplier effect that is increasingly out of reach with skyrocketing rents. These effects are greatest early in someone’s career; in other words, at the point where it has become more and more difficult to live in a major city.

The state’s Legislative Analyst Office puts the Bay Area’s crisis bluntly, and lays the blame on decades of state policy:

We advise the Legislature to change policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California’s coastal urban areas. Though the exact number of new housing units California needs to build is uncertain, the general magnitude is enormous. On top of the 100,000 to 140,000 housing units California is expected to build each year, the state probably would have to build as many as 100,000 additional units annually — almost exclusively in its coastal communities — to seriously mitigate its problems with housing affordability. Facilitating additional housing of this magnitude will be extremely difficult. It could place strains on the state’s infrastructure and natural resources and alter the prized character of California’s coastal communities. It also would require the state to make changes to a broad range of policies that affect housing supply directly or indirectly — including policies that have been fundamental tenets of California government for many years.

It is universally acknowledged that California’s housing crisis is driven by a lack of housing, so what will Harris’s plan do about this? Nothing. True, zoning laws are made at the state and local level, while Harris is a federal official — but the federal government could try to incentivize local-level reforms to build more housing, especially by leveraging the money it provides for local infrastructure projects. And yet under Harris’s proposal, the currently homeless would remain homeless, while renters would receive some very short-term relief at the cost of other taxpayers.

Why would the relief be short-term? Because as landlords become aware that renters are receiving a subsidy, they will simply raise rents by the amount of the subsidy. The cost will be the same for the renters — who today are lining up for a chance to rent, showing that they are willing to pay it. In the end, then, this would be an effective subsidy for landlords, not renters.

Indeed, Harris’s bill could compound the problems facing renters, by reducing the political pressure — currently building from both left and right in California via the “market urbanism” movement — to tackle the lack of housing. Defenders of the status quo will simply point to the Harris plan and insist that something has been done.

The real solution is the most obvious one: Build more homes. There was a brief housing boom in D.C., San Francisco, and New York in 2016, which led to a drop in rents. The Harris plan will not only ignore this fundamental factor, but it will actually make it harder to tackle. By the time the political luster wears off and the crisis is revisited, it will have gotten even worse.

If Harris is truly concerned about the plight of city renters, she ought to spend some time listening to the concerns of the market urbanists, and to use her influence to support attempts at housing reform in California. A recent attempt at a mild zoning deregulation to allow more homes, introduced by a left-wing state senator, Scott Wiener, was roundly defeated by the state’s political establishment in brazenly hypocritical ways. The Sierra Club roundly opposed the bill, even though it would mean a drop in carbon emissions thanks to less sprawl and increased access to transit.

The support of someone as prominent Kamala Harris could have an effect the next time such a reform is proposed. To make genuine progress on this issue, though, she will have to set aside her counterproductive subsidy bill and engage with the much less glamorous process that leads to real reform. Whether she is willing to tackle the real housing problem or cares more about her national political marketing remains to be seen.

The Strange World of Kavanaugh Opposition

By Bradley A. Smith

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Of all the attacks on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, perhaps the silliest is that he would open the door to foreign money in U.S. elections. How silly? The basis for this claim is an opinion that Judge Kavanaugh wrote upholding a law that prohibits non-resident aliens from making political contributions or expenditures.

Back in 2010, two Canadians residing in the U.S. on temporary visas wanted to contribute to U.S. political candidates — one to Democrats, the other to Republicans. However, federal law says that only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents — that is, “green card” holders — can do that.

Plaintiffs Benjamin Bluman and Asenath Steiman argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission undermined the constitutionality of that law. In Citizens United the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not prohibit corporations from spending money to support candidates for office simply because they were corporations. One week later, President Barack Obama lectured the Supreme Court in his State of the Union address, claiming that the decision in Citizens United would “open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”

“Not true,” mouthed Justice Sam Alito, seated in the audience during Obama’s comments. But Bluman and Steiman took up the president’s off-the-cuff legal opinion and sued. The case — Bluman v. Federal Election Commission — was heard by a three-judge court, with Brett Kavanaugh writing the opinion.

If Judge Kavanaugh thought that the Constitution protected the right of non-resident aliens to make political expenditures in U.S. elections, Bluman was a perfect case to strike down that law. The plaintiffs supported mainstream Republican and Democratic candidates. They were from a nation long allied with the U.S., not from geopolitical rivals such as China or Russia. No less an authority than the president had proclaimed that the ban on foreign spending was now open to question. They sought to make small contributions and expenditures — no more than $100 each in three or four different races. There was no chance that these small contributions would “corrupt” the legislature, the traditional justification for limits on campaign contributions and spending.

Yet, in a thorough, scholarly opinion for a unanimous panel, Judge Kavanaugh upheld the statute banning foreign contributions. Kavanaugh noted that the Supreme Court has upheld laws barring non-citizens from voting, participating on juries, or working as public-school teachers and police officers. Aliens have many constitutional rights, he concluded, but “the right to govern is reserved to citizens.”

At the Supreme Court, Judge Kavanaugh’s decision was summarily affirmed without dissent. And that, as they say, was that.

Until now. Desperate times call for desperate arguments, and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and other Kavanaugh detractors now claim that upholding the ban on foreign spending in elections is actually evidence of Kavanaugh’s intent to subvert the ban. Follow?

In his opinion, Judge Kavanaugh noted that the law banning foreign spending covers only what is known as “express advocacy” — communications specifically advocating the election or defeat of a candidate, such as “vote for Senator Jones.” It doesn’t cover ads saying, for example, “No one wins a trade war; urge your Senator to oppose Trump’s tariffs;” or “Stand with NATO.” But as the plaintiffs intended to finance only “express advocacy,” there was no need to consider broader statements. The statute covered their activities, and was found to be constitutional.

Kavanaugh critics claim, however, that Kavanaugh should have taken it upon himself to go further. He should have interpreted the law as covering a much broader range of communications than the express advocacy actually at issue. His failure to address an issue not before him, they allege, is somehow evidence that, once seated on the Supreme Court, he would strike the existing ban on foreign spending in U.S. elections, or at least oppose congressional efforts to expand it to cover generic ads about candidates and issues.

Not only is this insane legal reasoning, but it is Kavanaugh’s critics who are adopting the extreme view. After all, while we don’t want foreign nationals interfering in our elections, Americans can benefit from hearing the opinions of foreigners on the effects our political decisions might have. In cooler times, Kavanaugh would be praised for his restraint in not reaching out to decide matters not before the court.

If these are the best attacks against Kavanaugh, a judge with an enormous paper trail, it’s a sign that the argument against confirmation is very weak.

The Baseless Attack on Marc Short

National Review Online

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Two historians have quit their roles at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, a think tank focused on presidential history and public policy. They are protesting the one-year fellowship the institution has granted to Marc Short, a former legislative-affairs director for President Trump.

Good riddance. The think tank’s director has resolutely defended his decision to hire Short, and should continue to do so.

To call Short’s critics “hypersensitive” is to surrender to the false notion that there is anything at all here to be sensitive about. Short is not being criticized for anything he actually did, whether in his private capacity or as a member of the Trump administration. Rather, he is being attacked merely for being in the administration — especially during the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, when the president failed to condemn white supremacists promptly.

As for his own opinion about what transpired in Charlottesville, Short has embraced the Miller Center’s strong statement on the matter; regarding the White House’s reaction, he told Politico that the administration “could have done a better job expressing sympathy for the victims and outrage at those who perpetrated this evil.” That, of course, does not satisfy the Resistance.

Academics and alumni have rushed to sign an online petition urging the university to cancel Short’s fellowship — a petition that says the school should not hire “high-level members of an administration that has directly harmed our community and to this day attacks the institutions vital to a free society.” The resigning professors, meanwhile, fault Short for “associating himself with an administration that shows no respect for truth” and thereby “contribut[ing] to the erosion of civil discourse and democratic norms that are essential to democratic governance and that are central to the mission of the Miller Center.”

The professors also point to Short’s prior positions with the Koch Brothers Freedom Partners fund and the Senate campaign of Oliver North, as well as his new position with a conservative lobbying firm, but this is a distraction: The Miller Center routinely hires “practitioners” who have pursued partisan goals, and currently hosts veterans of assorted presidential administrations, Capitol Hill offices, advocacy groups, and ideologically oriented think tanks. Short’s decades of experience in politics and policy are an asset, not a liability.

The core message is clear: Anyone who has served in the Trump administration, in any role, is not welcome to a fellowship at the Miller Center. Never mind the perspective that a member of the Trump White House could bring to an institution that both seeks to understand the presidency and aims to provide competing viewpoints. And never mind that Short doesn’t face a single accusation rooted in his own behavior.

The Miller Center’s director and CEO, William J. Antholis, so far has shown admirable backbone in the face of these attacks on his decision to bring Short on board. We admire his commitment to bringing new ideas into the institution he heads, and wish both him and Short the best of luck weathering this absurd storm.