Orange County Legislative Watch — Just Win Baby How the Apartment Industry Can Change California

Just Win Baby! — How the Apartment Industry Can Change California

By ChiP ahlswede, viCe President oF external aFFairs

When Al Davis quipped his famous “just win baby” line following the 1984 Super Bowl it became an iconic rallying cry in sports. What most people do not remember is what led to it — or why.

The NFL moved to a 16-game season in 1983 from nine the previous year. This fundamentally changed how teams won championships. In 1983, the Los Angeles Raiders had their eyes set on the Lombardi Trophy, while everyone else assumed the Washington Redskins would repeat as Super Bowl Champions.

Regularly the interests of our industry are overlooked when policy decisions are made that affect housing. Policies tend to see only the short term “benefits” to the tenant, ignoring the long-term effects a policy has on housing. When such a disconnect occurs there is only one strategy — adapt and overcome.

Taking on the Favorites

October 2, 1983, the Raiders rolled into RFK Stadium to take on the defending Super Bowl Champion Washington Redskins. Despite coming out of the half down by 10, the Raiders rolled back with 28 points in the second half but came up short, losing 35–37 and taking home their first loss of the season.

Over the next month the Raiders went 2-and-2, with both losses coming at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks, a team they would eventually face for the AFC championship and a trip to the Super Bowl.

When Santa Ana sprung rent control on property owners in September 2021, the tenants and rent control advocates held all the cards, all the momentum, and all the support of the council majority. Despite the winds working against us, we fought back. We did everything by the book, which was not enough.

The council had to break the law, hide conflicts of interest, ignore typical protocol, lie to the community, harass our members, and force poorly crafted policy through to get their way.

Even still, they only won by one vote — and showed their playbook in the process.

The Game Has Changed

The Raiders started that 1983 season 4–0 but found themselves at 6–3 by the end of October with 7 games remaining. In previous years, the 9-game season would be over, but the season had changed, and the Raiders realized their game had better change as well. Assuring the industry’s ability to succeed in today’s political climate requires continued introspection and real-time adjustments.

While I may wish there were such thing as an “off season” from government attacking your business, it does not exist.

What does exist are benchmarks — elections, and analytics — election results.

Using these metrics and dissecting the data from each election we can determine where and how the political landscape is shifting, and how we can address it to have an advantage moving forward. Here is what we are finding — and what we are working towards:

Past models are not reliable in the current climate

“Young people and renters don’t