Renters and tenant advocates rally outside the Massachusetts House of Representatives on July 29, 2025 calling for action to overturn the statewide ban on rent control. Photo by Chris Lisinski | State House News Service
The months ahead could feature court battles, a hefty signature-gathering effort and a bruising campaign to sway voters. And with all of that still on the horizon, supporters and opponents of reviving rent control are already waging an opening battle over ballot eligibility.
A constellation of think tanks and real estate industry groups wrote to the attorney general’s office last week, urging officials to block a proposed initiative petition that would bring back caps on rent increases.
At the same time, the measure’s backers laid out a case for why the ballot question should be allowed to advance to the next milestone along the lengthy road to the 2026 ballot.
If organizers can clear the numerous and steep hurdles ahead, the measure seeking to impose a limit on rent increases statewide could represent one of the most intense political fights in recent years.
Opponents are fighting the proposal by seeking to have it tossed at the first juncture, lodging arguments that question backers dubbed “erroneous.”
On behalf of a trio of powerful real estate organizations, legal firm CEK Boston wrote to Campbell’s office last week arguing that the measure should not be certified because it would “deprive individuals of their right to receive compensation for their private property” and would touch on religion.
The section of the state Constitution outlining the initiative petition process prohibits any measure “that relates to religion, religious practices or religious institutions.” CEK Boston, which is led by former First Assistant Attorney General Tom Kiley, noted in its memo that the proposal would exclude “dwelling units in facilities operated solely for educational, religious, or non-profit purposes” from rent control.
“On its face, therefore, Petition 25-21 relates to religion, religious practices or religious institutions,” said the memo prepared on behalf of NAIOP-MA, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.
The Pioneer New England Legal Foundation and the Fiscal Alliance Foundation filed their own letters with Campbell’s office on Friday urging officials not to certify the measure as ballot eligible. They similarly argued that the introduction of a statewide cap on rent increases would deny landlords or mortgage bondholders of their right to return on property investment.
The Fiscal Alliance Foundation pointed to a 1998 Supreme Judicial Court decision invalidating a ballot question that would have scrapped Massachusetts Turnpike tolls, in which justices concluded that it would have improperly eliminated part of bondholders’ security interest backed by toll revenues.
PNELF also argued that the question improperly combines disparate topics — a frequent line of attack for ballot question opponents — by simultaneously proposing a limit on rent hikes as well as a system of penalties for violations of the proposed law.
“The Initiative Provision yokes a limitation on rent increases with Chapter 93A punishment, a law permitting treble damages and attorneys fees with no clear standards for whether a minor or unintentional violation will result in the imposition of such monetary punishment,” the organization wrote.
It’s not uncommon for both opponents and proponents to make their cases directly to the attorney general’s team before certification decisions are issued. The office encourages feedback, and memoranda of law were due by Friday, though it’s unclear exactly how many comments officials received on other proposals this cycle.
While officials wade through the arguments for spiking the rent control measure, they also have in hand a case for certifying it as meeting constitutional requirements.
Proponents in their own memo to the AG’s office contend that “a plain reading” of the measure “makes clear that it does not cover any excluded topic,” such as religion, judges or courts, or appropriating state dollars.
They also rebutted the argument opponents raised about infringing upon the right to receive “compensation for private property appropriated to public use.”
“Though the language of the petition makes plain there is no ‘appropriation of property for public use,’ some opponents have suggested that any attempt to regulate rent increases amounts to a regulatory taking and therefore violates this principle,” wrote the Mass. Law Reform Institute’s Andrea Park and Mark Martinez and Joel Feldman of the firm Heisler, Feldman & Ordorica. “This assertion is erroneous as well as misleading, as courts have consistently determined that regulations on rent increases do not constitute regulatory takings. Indeed, Massachusetts has had, and continues to have, numerous rent regulations that have survived judicial scrutiny, including challenges to prior rent control schemes as well as current manufactured housing rent control laws.”
The question being pushed by the advocacy group Homes for All would limit annual rent increases for most units to either the annual Consumer Price Index increase or 5%, whichever is lower.
Backers say skyrocketing housing costs are putting excess strain on many Bay State tenants, preventing younger residents from saving enough to purchase a home or displacing older adults on fixed incomes.
Voters in 1994 narrowly approved a ballot question prohibiting rent control across the state.
Two years ago, the attorney general’s office certified a rent control question as eligible to advance. That measure would have revived the practice as a local option rather than a blanket policy statewide, and its sponsors pulled the plug before the deadline to file voter signatures.
The attorney general’s review, which is set to be complete by Sept. 3, is the first hurdle for the 47 proposed laws and constitutional amendments filed this cycle. Once a question is deemed eligible, its backers will need to collect signatures from nearly 75,000 registered voters and file those with local elections officials by Nov. 19, a tall task that typically whittles the field down.
