1. renters are less invested in the local politics given their more flexible and transient nature, therefore they care and vote less than people who have assets and multi-decade skin in the game 2. voters aged 45+ are less likely to be renters, given lowered likelihood of moving with age, and the higher likelihood of having locked in cheap real estate decades earlier. Those voters also tend to vote more 3. therefore renters are far less represented in elections
Entirely possible the above is wrong, there might be data showing otherwise.
But my point was that renters and landlords get the same number of votes each, even if they use them at different rates.
Playing the long game is difficult and benefits people who aren’t starving or trying to hustle just to make rent this month.
The “heckler’s veto” of planning boards and the CEQA are what give the few people who severely want to restrict new development an asymmetric power. This doesn’t happen at the ballot box.
That’s not to say that there aren’t problematic measures. CA Prop 13 (1979) was passed by referendum, but SF Rent Control (1979) was passed by SF Board of Supervisors, so both democracy and republic governments both contributed to the current issues.