Why did rent-control activists meekly accept Agnos’s waffling on the chief issue on their political agenda? Because Agnos’s carefully crafted campaign identity as a friend of tenant interests overshadowed postelection reality. This led tenant activists to accept as good-faith action a clear betrayal of their constituency. Agnos had done nothing as mayor to demonstrate his pro-tenant stance; he had merely created personal relationships with leading rent-control activists during the campaign, which became “proof” of his support for tenant interests. The consensus among rent-control activists was that Agnos was “our” mayor, whom “we” had elected. Denying Agnos the political space he claimed to need, it was argued, would be the height of arrogance and eventually could turn him against tenants. Having felt left out for more than a decade, rent-control activists did not want to jeopardize their new access to power by fighting over what seemed nothing more than a procedural delay. A course was thus established whereby Agnos would have no reason to fear the tenant constituency. As a result, for the balance of his term he afforded tenants and their chief agenda item no respect.
Agnos’s “procedural delay” was only the first of many clever strategies he used to brush aside vacancy control while steadfastly proclaiming his commitment to it. After several months spent in pointless meetings with landlords, Agnos was forced to admit the failure of the “mediation process.” He then announced a new justification for his failure to enact vacancy control: lack of votes on the Board of Supervisors. This excuse had superficial validity during Agnos’s first year in office, but by 1989 the newly elected Board of Supervisors could have passed vacancy control if Agnos had made it a priority. But the reputedly pro-tenant Mayor Agnos did not.
Agnos’s lack of commitment to passing vacancy control became clearer in 1989 when he showed the kind of fight he could put up for a goal he really wanted. This involved his all-out effort to pass a November ballot initiative for a new stadium for the San Francisco Giants baseball team. To achieve a goal that he had never backed in his mayoral campaign and that his core neighborhood supporters opposed, Agnos used every political chit at his disposal. He had gay and lesbian leaders announce that the stadium would (somehow) increase funding for AIDS services; he got the Sierra Club to support the proposed stadium as good for the environment; and he made political deals with various supervisors in exchange for their backing. Despite all this, the stadium initiative failed.
Meanwhile, Agnos still had not lifted a finger to help the passage of vacancy control. I was not alone among tenant activists in recognizing the discrepancy between Agnos’s vigorous work on the stadium initiative and his lack of effort on vacancy control. Despite their recognition of Agnos’s inaction, however, leading rent-control activists continued to view him as committed to their cause. Had these activists evaluated the mayor’s actual accomplishments in the same way they would evaluate the performance, say, of any consumer product, they would have concluded that Agnos was, on his own, never going to produce on vacancy control. Nevertheless, as long as the mayor remained publicly committed to the proposal, rent-control leaders continued to identify him as tenants’ friend.
The November 1990 election offered a prime opportunity for vacancy control advocates. With a governor’s race, high-profile statewide environmental and consumer initiatives, and strong local candidates from the gay and lesbian community, the election promised to attract an unusually high progressive-voter turnout. But Agnos, and hence rent-control advocates, ignored this special opportunity to submit vacancy control to the voters, instead working to elect a clear pro– vacancy control majority on the Board of Supervisors. When this majority was achieved, vacancy control was finally enacted in 1991 (with Agnos’s approval). Almost immediately, however, the measure became subject—as advocates had always predicted it would—to a landlord-sponsored referendum on the November 1991 ballot. After the landlords qualified the referendum for the ballot, Agnos held a meeting with rent-control activists. He observed that, fortunately, the referendum would appear on the same ballot on which he sought reelection; therefore, his campaign could also fund the pro–vacancy control effort. I was not alone in recognizing the true import of the mayor’s statement: he had intentionally delayed vacancy control so as to assure a high tenant turnout for his reelection bid.
Ironically, Agnos’s secret strategy resulted in both his and vacancy control’s defeat. The real estate interests Agnos had tried so hard to placate in 1988 poured more than $1 million into defeating vacancy control. When other mayoral candidates who supported vacancy control unexpectedly entered the race, Agnos compounded his betrayal of tenants by playing down the issue and failing to provide the funding he had promised. The result: lacking both money and any grassroots campaign, vacancy control lost in a landslide. The candidate Agnos finished second to in November, former police chief Frank Jordan, drew strong support from elderly tenants who, having reaped no benefit from Agnos on rent-control issues, went instead with the law-and-order candidate.
Jordan failed to muster a majority, however, necessitating a December runoff between him and Agnos. That election crystallized the deep hostility that rent-control activists felt toward the mayor. Agnos and tenant activists met soon after the runoff campaign began, and, for the first time since Agnos took office, tenants spoke bitterly of his betrayal of their interests. I began the meeting by confronting the mayor with my belief—shared by many others—that he had sabotaged vacancy control by waiting until November 1991 and then breaking his promise to fund the campaign. Agnos agreed he had broken his promise, claiming his “political survival” was at stake. The meeting continued in this vein, with tenant activists torn between their anger at Agnos and their fear of aiding Jordan.
Agnos lost in the runoff—glaring proof of his personal unpopularity. Although I ignored his campaign in the general election, I believed his reelection was preferable to four years under his anti-poor, pro-landlord opponent. I contacted dozens of tenant activists about working for Agnos in the runoff but made no effort to change their minds when they declined to participate. They had good reason to shun Agnos, and I was not about to jeopardize my credibility by defending him. Some savvy political activists refused to endorse Agnos in the runoff, and though I took a different approach, their position was understandable.
Rent-control activists made a major tactical error at the beginning of Agnos’s term in establishing a relationship with him based on friendship rather than fear and in allowing him to substitute promises for action. When, right after taking office, the mayor sought to mediate between landlords and tenants, rent-control activists should have refused. Tactical activism required tenants to make it clear at the outset that, having helped elect Agnos, they were now entitled to results. Silence in the face of a politician’s initial betrayal sends a clear message that your constituency feels itself too weak, too confused, or too afraid to merit respect.
Suppose Agnos had employed the tactics of most politicians and expressed hurt and dismay at rent-control activists’ refusal to meet with landlords. Suppose he had also claimed that the activists were being “unreasonable,” were only “shooting themselves in the foot.” What should have been the response? Tactical activism would have had the rent-control activists give the mayor an ultimatum: either be our ally or be widely publicized as our betrayer. The activists should have declared that the campaign was over and that the time had come for results, not promises. By thus demonstrating their willingness to stand up for their agenda, rent-control activists would have conveyed a sense that they believed in the power of their constituency and were not afraid to take on the mayor. Had they done so, one of three possible results would have followed. First, and most likely, Agnos would have backed down. He was not seeking a political fight with tenants, but merely trying to manipulate them in furtherance of his own agenda. Second, Agnos might have sought to divide the activists by offering to meet with whoever was willing to attend. This strategy probably would have failed, because rent-control activists unified enough to give the new mayor an ultimatum would not be so easily divided. Third, Agnos could have announced his refusal to work further with rent-control activists. This would have been the most unlikely scenario of all, because a new mayor hardly wants to break with a main campaign constituency early in his term.
Had rent-control
