CONVICTION – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Rent Control

I finished graduate school at a difficult time in the Pacific Northwest labor market. In 2019, before COVID, hiring was still concentrated largely in tech. My friends from undergrad (Go Cougs) were landing jobs in management consulting and program management. I studied history, political science, and economics as an undergraduate, then continued that work in graduate programs at Columbia University and the London School of Economics. I had also worked on campaigns and in elected officials’ offices, but at the time, employers did not seem especially interested in humanities or social science backgrounds.

With my degrees in hand, I moved back to my hometown of Burien and ran for city council. I won in 2019 and again in 2023, then was selected as Mayor of Burien in 2024. During that period, King County and Washington State underwent a major shift in political identity. During COVID, activists used the pandemic to push new mandates on housing providers, including eviction moratoriums and restrictions on rent collection. Even in Burien, I helped stop an effort by then-community activist Katie Wilson to require housing providers to pay tenants’ moving costs.

After COVID, activists and their allies set their sights higher. Rent control became the next step for politicians seeking to control private enterprise and interfere in the landlord-tenant relationship. More elected officials (and more voters) came to believe that supporting anything labeled anti-Trump was the only way to influence public policy. As a result, activists and political organizers worked at nearly every level of government to expand eviction moratoriums, waive rent requirements, broaden tenant protections, and ultimately impose state-mandated rent control.

When I became Mayor, I knew I could not support these policies. Everything I had learned in academia showed they were fundamentally flawed. Supply would decline, responsible operators would leave the market, and large, private equity-backed firms would have an opening to expand their ownership of community housing. I kept asking myself: Don’t elected officials want neighbors to supply housing to neighbors, rather than potentially predatory actors interested only in making more money?

That was the argument I made locally and before the Legislature. But as we know, the Legislature chose a path that runs counter to economic science. In the end, this is a rejection of evidence by many of the same people who, during the world’s most recent pandemic, insisted that we follow it.

In reality, the rent control debate was only the beginning of what I believe many elected officials (once described as “progressive” and now openly “socialist”) want: to make individual private ownership, whether of property or other wealth-building assets, as difficult as possible in this state. Alongside rent control, the Legislature has passed or expanded taxes on income, capital gains, estates, property, business activity, and sales. No matter what you own or what economic activity you generate, the state has signaled its intent to claim a share of it.

What is Washington doing to encourage broader ownership and wealth creation? It is a question I asked myself as Mayor and continue to ask in my new role as Government Affairs and Advocacy Director of RHAWA. Unfortunately, I do not believe most elected officials are asking it.

That is the landscape for the next few years, and it is exactly why associations are so vital. RHAWA cannot stop these threats alone, but an organized association of more than 6,000 housing providers can push back with discipline, persistence, and a clear message. We can always do more, but the stakes are higher now. With socialist candidates winning office across the country, including here in our own backyard, the political pendulum is unlikely to swing back toward common sense on its own.

I know that can be demoralizing. Losing is hard. But the true test of conviction is whether we get back into the fight, because there will always be another one. I know that because I’ve been in fights my whole life: my first campaign I worked on that lost, my own two campaigns I won, the legislative campaign I lost, and many other fights, great and small. No matter the size of the fight, and no matter what stage in life, whether it was during college and grad school, on the campaign trail, during my time as Mayor, or supporting members of an association, the fight is always worth it. I am proud to work with an association that is not afraid to defend property rights, expand housing opportunities, support community investment, and stand up for common sense.