The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a major property-rights challenge to rent control laws in New York City and elsewhere that give tenants a right to stay for many years in an apartment with a below-market cost.
A group of New York landlords had sued, contending the combination of rent regulation and long-term occupancy violated the Constitution’s ban on the taking of private property for public use.
The justices had considered the appeal since late September. Only Justice Clarence Thomas issued a partial dissent.
When a handful of colluding parties control the entire supply of something people can’t live without, that’s not a free market. It’s despotism. The parties in control can do anything they want, and anybody who tries to tell them no can be deprived of that resource and left to die.