Anti-Democracy Full Speed Ahead!

Even if you don’t care about the 50+ tenant landlord law changes in AB183 (22 tenants rights at the state level and 25 or more at the local level), you should care about the sham that the Assembly Republicans, Realtors Association and Madison Area Apartment Association are making out of our democracy.  Bill passed in 15 days or less?

Last Week Monday
Around 3:30pm I found out about a 21-page bill circulating for sponsors at the capital. The memo asking for sponsors was labeled “SHORT DEADLINE – Co-Sponsorship LRB 1931”

SHORT DEADLINE!

To:                   All Legislators

From:               Representative Stroebel and Senator Lasee

Date:               April 29, 2013

Re:                   Co-Sponsorship, LRB 1931/2:  Relating to miscellaneous provisions related to rental and vehicle towing practices, prohibitions on enacting ordinances that place certain limitations or requirements on landlords

 SHORT DEADLINE:  Tuesday, April 30^th, at 3pm

The shoe finally dropped, we had been waiting for it, and all indications were that this was another rush job in the works. We quickly read the bill and analyzed what it would do at the state level.

Last week Tuesday
We were still scrambling to figure out the impact on local ordinances, at first I found 17 changes, but I think I’m up to 25 or so now, and I’m still certain I don’t have them all.

On Tuesday we found out there would be a hearing on Thursday at 10:00. We scrambled to get the word out, issue press releases, talk to the press, inform advocates, make sure we knew what the bill said, figure out who served on the committee, etc etc etc.

Last week Wednesday – a week ago
Formal notice of the hearing comes out. We have a bill number!

Proposal: AB183 (-1931) View Bill History
relating to: miscellaneous provisions related to rental and vehicle towing practices and eviction proceedings, prohibitions on enacting ordinances that place certain limitations or requirements on landlords, providing an exemption from emergency rule procedures, granting rule-making authority.

• 4/30/2013: Introduced by Representatives Stroebel, Jacque, Pridemore and Kerkman; cosponsored by Senator Lasee

• 4/30/2013: Read first time and referred to Committee on Housing and Real Estate

• 4/30/2013: Housing and Real Estate Scheduled a Public Hearing

Last Week Thursday
Sham of a public hearing held. Speakers limited to 2 minutes, almost everyone cut off, you couldn’t hardly speak to just one of the issues in the bill, let alone the nearly 50 changes that the bill would have on Madison tenants. The ignorance of the sponsor and supporters was somewhat astounding; just plain factual errors about what the law currently does compounded by the, yet again, poorly drafted and little understood bill being proposed made for a few laughs. But the seriousness of what they were doing made me quickly sober up from that laughter. Rep. Janet Bewley did her best to expose the hypocrisy of the Republican “local control” mantra being ignored and the lies of the sponsor and/or Realtors Assn. about who helped draft the bill. (Video/audio will be coming if I get a chance to breathe!)

Last Week Friday, the weekend and Monday
Radio silence

Yesterday . . .
First, aroound noon we found out that this was being scheduled for the Assembly Floor on Tuesday.

From: Rep.Suder
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 12:00 PM
Subject: Assembly Proposed Calendar for Tuesday, May 14th

*** RULES COMMITTEE NOTICE ***

DATE:           May 7, 2013

TO:             Rules Committee Members, Interested Parties

FROM:   Majority Leader Scott Suder

RE:             Proposed Calendar for May 14th

The Assembly committee on Rules will meet during, or upon adjournment of Assembly session on Wednesday, May 8^th to schedule the calendar for session convening at 1:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 14^th .  

The Assembly will not be in session on May 15^th or 16^th.

The Assembly will host the Dalai Lama on May 14^th.  He will speak to the Assembly from 2:45 p.m. until 3:30 p.m.

Please note that the Assembly will also be recognizing a hometown hero on May 14^th.  Representative Steineke will be honoring the life and service of Andrew Steiner.

·       Also, please note that it is our intention to have AB 77 and AB 183 directly referred by the Speaker to the calendar for Tuesday, May 14^th upon executive action by the committee on Housing and Real Estate.

AB 77 (Jagler) Relates to: reports by the Dwelling Code Council on the one- and two-family dwelling code. and AB 183 (Stroebel) Relates to: miscellaneous provisions related to rental and vehicle towing practices and eviction proceedings, prohibitions on enacting ordinances that place certain limitations or requirements on landlords, providing an exemption from emergency rule procedures, granting rule-making authority.

Around 5:00 we found out they were scheduling an executive session on the bill and they had a 6 page amendment with 23 more changes to the bill. I spent an hour figuring out what the changes were.

The City Council through together a resolution opposing AB183 and got it on their agenda for last night (Thanks Resnick, Mayor and Schmidt). They made some really good points which I wasn’t bloogging, but I will go back and get for a post. Thanks them when you see them for doing what they could do.

Today
Gee thanks, got this notice this morning . . .

Proposal: AB183 (-1931) View Bill History
relating to: miscellaneous provisions related to rental and vehicle towing practices and eviction proceedings, prohibitions on enacting ordinances that place certain limitations or requirements on landlords, providing an exemption from emergency rule procedures, granting rule-making authority.

• 5/7/2013: Housing and Real Estate Scheduled an Executive Session

No mention of it being before the full Assembly on Tuesday . . .

What does this all mean?
For Tenants
In Madison, with a 1.88% vacancy rate, quite simply, it means more homelessness, more doubled and tripled up, more people forced to leave town? The eviction process changes are going to be dramatic if I think the bill does what I think it does – allows landlords to just throw your stuff on the curb immediately after your court date – no time to prepare or find a place to stay. Not to mention getting your car towed, getting ripped off by your landlord with illegal fees, they taking your property you accidentally forgot or that they think you forgot even though you were coming back for it, no longer being informed of things like tickets for taking batteries out of smoke detectors or the landlords phone numbers, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc . . . 50 changes for Madison tenants!

For Landlords Mass confusion. First they passed Act 108 that went into effect December 2011, then they passed Act 143 that went into effect March 2012 and now this bill. Just trying to keep up with the changes and figuring out which laws apply to which leases depending upon when the bills were passed and when the leases were signed is a nightmare. Even the best landlords trying to follow the laws are going to make mistakes that they will have to pay for if the right tenant enforces their rights.

For Neighborhoods
Alder Lauren Cnare made a good point last night at the council meeting – even if you don’t care about renters rights, you should care about what this means for the neighborhoods and how they will be affected by landlords that don’t take care of their property or tenants that are destabilized and pushed around the city.

For the Tenant Resource Center
We barely survived the last two bills, rewriting our website, all our brochures, our housing counselor training guide, our books, translating brochures to spanish, etc etc etc. Plus, retraining staff and volunteers in an increasingly more difficult area of the law – to the point where I have to think about if volunteers can do this work any more . . . and then preparing to teach full day seminars on all the all the law changes. And now we get to do it all over again . . . with no additional funding or staff.

So, yeah, that’s why I haven’t been blogging . .. its so hard to keep up, and keep everyone else up to date on what is going on . . . tho looks like the first part will be over in less than 2 weeks, then we find out what the Senate is going to do . . .