Jennifer Smith, CommonWealth Beacon
February 7, 2026

RENT CONTROL OPPONENTS have gone to court to try to stop a November ballot question that would impose one of the strictest caps on rent in the country.

The suit, filed to the Supreme Judicial Court on Friday by the real estate-backed Housing for Massachusetts coalition, cites six separate issues that it claims disqualify the rent control question from being put before voters.

If passed, the ballot question would cap most rent increases across the state at either the annual change in the Consumer Price Index or 5 percent, whichever is lower.

Proponents of the initiative, led by the tenant advocacy group Homes for All, say it is a desperately needed fix for a rental market spiraling beyond the reach of many Bay Staters. The approach has split progressives over whether a statewide mandate or a tailored local option, allowing cities and towns to choose to impose rental control, would have been the more politically savvy play.

Rent control was banned in Massachusetts in 1994 through a statewide ballot question. Efforts to revive the practice since then – either statewide or by local option – have fizzled on Beacon Hill.

Four landlords who own and lease residential units in Massachusetts are the named plaintiffs in the suit seeking to kill the rent control measure. They are suing Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Secretary of State William Galvin in their official capacities.

“This poorly written and ill-conceived measure repeals a thirty-year old law passed by the people of Massachusetts,” the anti-rent control campaign said in a statement. “It will not only do permanent damage to housing and affordability in the Commonwealth, but it also presents voters with inaccurate and incomplete information."

The ballot question would tie rent increases to the rent that was in place on January 31, 2026. The rent caps would not apply to buildings completed in the last decade, those with four units or fewer, rental units where “transient” guests stay for less than two weeks, public housing units, or units operated for educational, religious, or non-profit purposes.

Ballot measures can be disqualified for a number of reasons.

Because voters are only given the option to vote “yes” or “no” on the questions, the language must be clear and involve a single subject that is considered appropriate for a ballot campaign. For instance, the state does not allow ballot measures to be related to religion, the courts, or specific places in Massachusetts.

The rent control lawsuit takes on AG Campbell’s summary of the petition, argues that the measure involves excluded subjects, and says it involves multiple unrelated provisions.

In the lawsuit, attorneys argue that the petition contains undefined and ambiguous language not suitable for the ballot, and that the attorney general’s summary is misleading, incomplete, and not “fair.”

“Nowhere does the summary inform voters that the petition goes far beyond proposing a new rent control law,” the lawsuit alleges. “In reality, the petition proposes to strike out the current law that has prohibited rent control in Massachusetts since 1994.”

According to the suit, the petition also violates state law prohibiting ballot measures that would be inconsistent with the right of individuals “to receive compensation for private property appropriated to public use.”

The petition would not only repeal the ban on rent control, the lawsuit claims, it would also “eliminate a right owners of private residential rental property currently and indisputably possess,” namely, compensation for their private property having its income potential limited in order to serve a public purpose. This also conflicts with the state Declaration of Rights, the suit claims, and the attorney general should not have certified the measure.

Another claim argues that the petition should not be allowed because it involves religious matters by exempting units used for religious, educational, or non-profit purposes.

The lawsuit also rolls out a common line of attack on ballot measures – that it includes multiple, unrelated issues – in an unorthodox way. Attorneys argue that by exempting short-term rental units from the rent control scheme, the ballot measure is somehow engaged in regulating seasonal and vacation rentals. This, the suit claims, is unrelated to the stated purpose of the petition to regulate long-term rental housing.

The suit asks the court to declare the initiative petition measure invalid, reject the AG’s certification, and stop Galvin from placing the measure on the ballot.

Campbell’s office declined to comment on Friday evening.

Voters could face a record-breaking number of ballot questions this fall, with 11 inititaive petitions filed along with one measure that seeks to repeal a sweeping 2024 gun law.

The is the second legal challenge filed in the current ballot question cycle.

Opponents of a measure that would lower the income tax rate from 5 percent to 4 percent filed suit last week, asking the Supreme Judicial Court to toss the question because the attorney general’s summary of the proposal is “fundamentally unfair,” inaccurate, and misleading.

Justice Frank Gaziano ordered parties in the income tax case to file briefs in the next few months, with oral arguments on the income tax question expected to take place in May.

SJC rulings typically come out within 130 days of oral arguments, but the court tries to move briskly on initiative petitions. The court is often weighing whether initiatives are suited for the ballot at the same time as lawmakers and ballot campaigns negotiate over potential legislative solutions.

The Legislature has until May 5 to act on the ballot measures. which had to collect nearly 75,000 certified signatures in a first round of signature gathering. If lawmakers choose not to pass a measure into law, the campaign moves to a second round of signature gathering, where proponents will need to secure an additional 12,429 signatures to ensure the question can appear on the ballot. Those signatures need to be submitted to local election registrars by mid-June.

The Legislature on Thursday agreed to appoint a 10-person joint committee to consider the 11 initiative petitions that could go before voters in November. Members of the committee are expected to be named in the next week, according to the State House News Service.

Homes for All executive director Carolyn Chou told the Boston Globe this week that the group would be open to dropping the ballot campaign if lawmakers passed a strong rent control policy. Senate leadership declined to weigh in, while House leadership openly criticized the rent control proposal for having the potential to stifle housing production.

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.