whether it's the ellis act, costa hawkins act, things were created because of real estate special interests and significantly restrict us as policy makers in the city and county of san francisco to extend protections to folks who are struggling. so we've seen that balance in the state and power give a little bit in the context of the pandemic, where we had seen the state government willing to give us a little more power. san francisco peskin, you led on the commercial eviction protections, where the governor said in the pandemic, that as a city, we could do more than what we would be otherwise allowed to do. but i think this prop, proposition 21, really gets at the heart of not just what's going on in the pandemic, but beyond. are we going to be able to protect folks from high-rent evictions or not? and will we have the choice? and right now, that choice is made by the renters association and the state government, and this would return the power to us so we can craft some protections. it's narrow in scope, as miss bynard pointed out, as there were fewer things that were controversial than i

proposition 21 is a referendum on costa hawkins, 1995 law that drastically limit each state's ability to enact rent control. voters have the option to make changes to this back in 2018, with proposition 10. but that did not pass. >> this is a presidential year, right? we know the electorate will be several million voters larger than it was in 2018, it will be a more representative sample of the state of california. >> reporter: this is the campaign director, he says it will be different this time. and that covid is making people more aware of tenants living on the edge. >> over 5 million renters in the state of california are at risk of losing their homes in the coming months. and that is on top of the fact that already a majority of renters in the state were paying too much money on rent. >> reporter: that was that of analyst office as prop 21 will result in tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue to the state every year, which is one reason why they oppose it. >> it decreases the value of housing stock, and decreasing revenue to cities and it decreases the quality of housing, wh