Gov. Gavin Newsom today announced his opposition to Proposition 21, the extreme rent control measure on the Nov. 3 statewide ballot.

Newsom also opposed Proposition 10, a nearly identical measure that went down in defeat in 2018.

“In the past year, California has passed a historic version of statewide rent control – the nation’s strongest rent caps and renter protections in the nation – as well as short-term eviction relief,” the governor said in a press release. “But Proposition 21, like Proposition 10 before it, runs the all-too-real risk of discouraging availability of affordable housing in our state.”

Tom Bannon, chief executive officer of the California Apartment Association, applauded the governor’s opposition.

“We appreciate that Gov. Newsom is joining the broad coalition of veterans, affordable housing advocates, labor, civil rights groups and other opponents to a once-rejected ballot measure that will worsen California’s affordable housing crisis.”

Like Prop 10, Prop 21 is being financed by Michael Weinstein and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and threatens to bring back the extreme forms of rent control that proliferated in the 1970s.

At the heart of Proposition 21, like its predecessor Prop 10, is a crusade to dismantle the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act — the single most vital California law for rental housing providers.

If Proposition 21 passes, local governments will bring back vacancy controls, capping rents between tenancies; they’ll also apply local rent control ordinances to newer apartments — as soon as they turn 15 years old — and to a greater number of condos and single-family homes.