On Wednesday morning, a small group of activists assembled outside the district office of East Bay Assemblymember Buffy Wicks in Oakland. They represented groups that included Tenants Together, the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, and Democratic Socialists of America chapters on both sides of the bay.
They had one demand: Wicks must pull a bill she had introduced days earlier.
Her bill, AB 736 (opens in new tab), proposed a statewide cap on property transfer taxes at 3% and would limit most rates to 1.5%. The rates are usually set at the local level. In San Francisco, the transfer tax rate on sales over $10 million has been 6% since 2020…