Betraying Tenants, California Legislators Vote to Allow Arbitrary Eviction

Friday, June 1, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 1, 2018
 
Contact: Shanti Singh, shanti@tenantstogether.org, 415-495-8100 x7
 
Sacramento, CA – In a major test of the will of California Legislators to stand up to the real estate industry that funds them, AB 2925 (Bonta) was defeated on the floor of the California Assembly.  This bill would have required a landlord to state a cause when evicting a tenant. Legislators deferred to the landlord lobby and voted down the measure.  37 Assembly Democrats joined with all Assembly Republicans to defeat this bill.
 
“Thanks to these cowardly legislators, many California tenants will continue to face eviction for no reason whatsoever amidst this displacement crisis,” said Tenants Together Executive Director Dean Preston. “We will continue to push for local ordinances banning these unfair evictions.”
 
The floor vote occurred on Thursday evening, May 31, 2018, the day after Tenants Together released a new report showing that 1.5 million tenants have faced court eviction actions in California over the last three years.  Increasingly, tenants who are forced from their homes end up homeless or displaced from California.
 
AB 2925 was authored by Assemblymember Rob Bonta (D – Oakland) who has emerged as a key champion in the Capitol on tenant rights bills. Despite the difficulty of running a tenant rights bill in the Capitol dominated by real estate money, Bonta introduced the bill based on a fundamental objection to arbitrary eviction, with hopes that his colleagues would rise to the occasion on this important issue. 
 
Voting in favor of AB 2925: Assemblymembers Bloom, Bonta, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Friedman, Gipson, Gonzalez Fletcher, Holden, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Mullin, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Rendon
 
Refusing to support: Assemblymembers Acosta, Aguiar-Curry, Travis Allen, Arambula, Baker, Berman, Bigelow, Brough, Burke, Caballero, Calderon, Carrillo, Cervantes, Chávez, Chen, Choi, Cooley, Cooper, Cunningham, Dahle, Daly, Eggman, Flora, Fong, Frazier, Gallagher, Gloria, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gray, Grayson, Harper, Irwin, Kamlager-Dove, Kiley, Lackey, Levine, Limon, Low, Maienschein, Muratsuchi, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Patterson, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, , Reyes, Rodriguez, Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Salas, Steinorth, Voepel, Waldron, Weber, Wood
 
Tenants Together is California’s only statewide renters' rights organization. With 50 member organizations across the state, Tenants Together works to improve the lives of California’s tenants through education, organizing and advocacy. Tenants Together is supporting numerous local efforts to pass rent control and just cause for eviction protections, which are unaffected by this state legislation.
 

Help build power for renters' rights: