Kamala Harris’s recent embrace of rent control, explained

At her first major campaign rally since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris made a relatively unexpected promise.

Speaking in Atlanta to a crowd of 10,000 supporters, Harris pledged to “take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases.”

Harris’s remarks to cap rents echoed a recent proposal from the Biden administration just two weeks earlier to limit rent hikes to 5 percent nationwide over the next two years for all landlords who own more than 50 units. (They estimate this would cover over 20 million units across the country.) The Biden plan — which would require congressional approval — would exempt not-yet-built units, so as to not discourage much-needed new housing. The two-year rent cap, Biden officials said, would serve as a way to drive down costs while new housing was under construction.