Senate to Vote on Rent Control

BOSTON--The state Senate will decide today on petitions from Boston, Brookline and Cambridge to preserve rent control in spite of Question 9--the ballot initiative passed last month that would eliminate rent control effective January 1.

The 40-member body postponed the vote from yesterday, after a four-hour meeting. The state House of Representatives passed all three petitions last Monday.

But Gov. William F. Weld '66 confirmed yesterday that he plans to veto any petition that would maintain rent control past January 1. "I would send back the three [petitions] that passed the House," he told The Crimson. "'Send back' meaning 'veto,'" he later clarified.

By a 51 to 49 percent margin, state voters on November 8 supported eliminating rent control, which regulates rents on more than 16,000 units in Cambridge.

Boston, Brookline and Cambridge--the three communities in Massachusetts with rent-control laws--have filed home-rule petitions asking Beacon Hill to allow a gradual phase-out of the program.

Sen. Robert E. Travaglini (D-East Boston), whose district includes part of Cambridge, told reporters that state senators had privately reached agreed on changing the three petitions before passing them.

Travaglini said a majority of senators had agreed that the petitions must each include a "sunset clause," which would allow a scheduled phase-out for eliminating rent control; an income-based means test to determine eligibility for remaining in a rent-controlled unit; and an adjustment to the definition of a rent-controlled structure.

The senator said rent control should only serve to protect the poor, disabled and elderly. The House will have to agree to any modifications the Senate makes in the petitions, he added.

Meanwhile, Assistant Attorney General Peter Sacks and lawyers for four plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the Election Day voting procedures met in Superior Court yesterday to discuss a timetable for the case to be heard.

The plaintiffs are charging that Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly--who administered the disputed vote--violated the state constitution by not printing summaries of the questions in voting booths.

An Appeals Court justice last week dismissed a lower court's restraining order blocking certification of four of the nine ballot initiatives in the election.

But the justice allowed the order to remain for Question 9, citing the harm its enactment might cause tenants.

Ed Cafasso, spokesperson for the attorney general, said yesterday that Sacks and the plaintiffs' attorneys had agreed to petition Superior Court Judge Susan Garsh to pass the case directly to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC)--the state's highest court.

"Judge Garsh expressed her support for that move," Cafasso said, adding that the move to transfer the case might be made jointly by both sides.