Yes, we did get one step further than Cambridge Citizens United for Rent Equity (CCURE), got in 1999, but no one in the group can feel proud of our showing at the ballot box in November—only 38.6% yes votes.

But, as I hope to show, Cambridge has not necessarily turned irreversibly away from being home to middle and working class people—or become immune to political action by its bedrock population.

History of Rent Control in Cambridge

Rent Control in fact was first instituted for a while in the early 1920’s brought back in 1942-56, then again from 1970-94, and lost again in the infamous state-wide referendum of 1994. The referendum won by 46.3% to 43.9%, helped by the 87% of ballots that were counted by machine not having anything on the ballot itself saying what was being voted on, as opposed to the 13% paper ballots, which did; it should be noted that it if you only count the 148 cities and towns with paper ballots, it failed.

In 1999, CCURE secured all but around 140 of the signatures needed to get a petition to bring back Rent Control on the ballot, despite quite amazing adversity. First, we were sadly and strangely not supported and even opposed by major tenants’ groups in Cambridge. Second, the Cambridge Election Commission mysteriously did not tell us until about one week before the deadline that we needed about 1760 more signatures than they had earlier led us to believe.

In early 2003, CCRC was formed and attempted to get a very similar binding referendum on the ballot in November. This time the Eviction Free Zone (EFZ) was on board—in fact initiating the action—and largely in command along with Green party members some of whom were veterans of similar campaigns.

Complex legal issues were left over from 1999 that may be summarized thusly:

1. The Motor Voter law ushered in in the early ‘90’s included provisions that kept people on the voting rolls longer than before; now students and other long-gone folks swelled the numbers, so that correspondingly higher numbers of signatures had to be gathered to amount to 8% of this unfairly swollen number. State Representative Paul Demakis offered an amendment in ‘03 to redress this, but nothing has come of it yet.
2. Most preposterous of all, the number of votes needed in the referendum to make it binding on the City Council to send it on to the State as a home-rule petition was 1/3 of that inflated number of registered voters. Given voter turnouts in the odd-numbered years of City Council elections (or even presidential years), that means that more people would have had to vote in favor than would be even showing up.

Our legal department had no success in challenging the latter, but we forged on, knowing that a significant majority of yes votes would apply political pressure to redress the ridiculous laws, and be a mandate for a community in increasingly severe trouble.

Despite rosy predictions from much of CCRC and from our young campaign manager—and a very low target of raw signatures (i.e. before the winnowing out of illegibles, double signers, non-voters, etc.) rejected by those of us with experience—we barely squeaked over the bar with about 4450—i. e., with c. 90 to spare. Our opponents, the so-called Small Property Owners Ass. (SPOA)—who outspent us by the margin of $109,288 to $9,761, or 11-1—then mounted a challenge to the count. But in what was maybe the high point of the campaign, thanks in greatest part to our marvelous and indomitable lawyer Ellen Shachter we routed the would-be evil-doers, even gaining in the exchange as she won back more in a symbolic counter-challenge than they had taken away.

But then, with only the small margin of 150, and correspondingly without the kind of full-scale campaign that would have involved much more of the city, the roof caved in. With three days left before the vote, our campaign manager unaccountably quit (all attempts to get her comments for this article were in vain), and we fell short with 7,832 out of the 20,299 voting.

Why did we fail to get a majority?

My own view is, we simply didn’t plan or organize well. We knew the landlord interests, including around 8/9 of City Council, the press, and most of what Jerry Brown once termed the “custodians of political thought” would spend plenty of money and use plenty of underhanded tactics. That was and always will be a given (one could quibble about the City Council fraction in the future).

But we did not get out into the community as we should have; we had a discombobulated organization; we had an attitude of unjustified optimism combined with ridiculously low targets for signature-collecting. When we did call people we usually didn’t seek their involvement enough, or seek it effectively.

A Tale of Willful Deceit

Our best—and to be honest, our only—friend on the City Council was and is Councilor Denise Simmons, the former School Committee member now in her second term. She was the only one who supported our Rent Control petition in her campaign.

Cambridge City Councilor Ken Reeves distinguished himself in a negative way, in the same manner as he had in 1999. Once again Reeves claimed to have signed the petition when nothing could have been further from the truth—in both cases the record was combed and no such signature was found.

When he was called on these repeated brazen lies and on the changing of his story, he raised the sword of power in our faces, saying something to the effect of, “I am sure that you don’t know for certain whether or not I signed your petition,” and “Why do you people treat me so badly when you know you need my support?”

These attempts to play both sides of the street, hailing himself as the protector of the poor and the black—while in reality following the bidding of the wealthy, the white, and the comfortably propertied—should be seen for what they are.

The proper answer to people like Reeves is, I believe, that it’s kind of hard not to be aggrieved when elected officials’ behavior is so egregious. If he is offended when we mention his deceptions, he should at least stop the deceptions, and ideally own up to them. He should at least be honest about where he stands (and watch what happens to his support in disadvantaged communities without which he loses his city council seat). We all know how profitable it is to be what in more honest times and places was commonly called a “violin candidate”—put up by the left, but played by the right. He wants us to shut up and take his lies lying down, or we won’t get his vote on crucial issues. Guess what, his votes have rarely been there anyway, so there’s little to lose.

As for the rest of the councilors, the other “liberals” Marjorie Decker, Brian Murphy, and Henrietta Davis make a show of supporting affordable housing except when a measure that will really help is on the table. Tim Toomey supported Rent Control when it was convenient, but served notice of a change of heart after the 1999 signature fiasco by providing the crucial procedural vote against any restorative Council action. As for the other less “liberal” councilors, Mayor David Sullivan, Anthony Galluccio, and David Maher, they are openly happy about the housing situation, especially Galluccio. They seem overjoyed that people strapped for big bucks can no longer be their neighbors, and Galluccio brays often about the great housing glut, overlooking the fact that many folks do not have an arm and a leg to spare as payment for this housing.

But we should think more about people like Councilor Simmons, the many new and veteran volunteers along the trail, and the 7,832 who voted yes in November. Since there is clearly so much room for improvement on our side, we should remain undaunted; efforts should continue, and optimistically so, only with more dedication and careful planning.