Judge Nixes Tacoma Ballot Duel on Tenant Protections

The Tacoma City Council’s plan to put dueling tenant-protection measures on the November ballot has been rejected by a Pierce County Superior Court Judge, who ruled this week that one of the proposed ballot measures was “not a true alternative” for voters.

As a result of Judge Timothy Ashcraft’s ruling, a more expansive tenant-protection measure, proposed by a citizen-led initiative called Tacoma for All, will remain on the ballot while a competing ballot question—crafted by the City Council—will not appear on the ballot.

Here’s what the City Council did: when Tacoma for All gathered 7,000 signatures to put its tenant-protection measure, called Measure 1, on the ballot, the Council passed an ordinance enacting a more-restrictive tenant-protection ordinance.

Then, the Council put forward its own ordinance as a competing ballot initiative—Measure 2—and crafted the Measure 2 ballot question to avoid mentioning that Measure 2 was not a proposal for a new law but a ratification of a law that already existed.

Maybe they were drinking too much coffee at that meeting, but the Council apparently assumed that nobody would notice.

Judge Ashcraft noticed, and he was not amused. “Neither the ballot title nor explanatory statements clearly explain that Measure 2 already is law and will remain law regardless of the vote,” the judge ruled.

“This is really a false choice as it implies that, at most, one proposed measure will be approved,” Ashcroft wrote in his decision. The city’s proposal, he said, is “not a true alternative.”

The city’s process “resulted in a fall choice” and “ran afoul of the State Constitution,” the ruling said.

Appearing on the ballot will be Measure 1, aims to enact a series of tenant-protection measure including several that already have been adopted in neighboring Seattle.

Measure 1 would require landlords to give six months’ advance notice of rent increases and pay relocation assistance if tenants move out after certain rent increases; cap fees at $10; and limit evictions during the school year and winter months.

The amount of relocation assistance would vary based on the size of the rent increase, ranging from two months’ rent for a 5% increase to three months’ rent for a hike of more than 10%, which the petitioners said was an acknowledgement “of the additional time required to find replacement housing when a tenant’s current rent is below market rate.

Unlike the relocation assistance program in Seattle, which is means-tested, the ballot initiative would make relocation assistance available to all tenants, regardless of income.