Tenants PAC

Activities

Tenants PAC (formally, Tenants Political Action Committee) is a left-of-center political action committee (PAC) based in New York City. The organization is a campaign group for candidates in New York state who advocate for tenant interests over those of the real estate industry and landlords. The group claimed that it regularly spent between $100,000 and $150,000 to support state-level candidates every two-year election cycle. ¹

As of May 2026, the group campaigned for changes to rent laws and regulations that favor tenants at the expense of landlords. In 2019, it was part of a coalition that succeeded in passing the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA) that expanded tenant protections. ²

Background

Tenants PAC was founded in 1997 following a legislative battle over the renewal of state-level rent-control and rent-stabilization laws. Tenants mobilized to oppose the lapse of the law, and in the end the laws were renewed, though these renewals included deregulation of rent-stabilized apartments when they became vacant. The PAC’s founder, Michael McKee, concluded that lobbying was not enough and that tenants had to become involved in elections to exert more influence. ¹

Organization Philosophy

Tenants PAC supports left-of-center rent and eviction policies, seeking to expand rent control across New York state. The group has explicitly supported Democrats and has claimed that its work helped to swing control of the New York State Senate from Republican control to Democratic control over the course of several decades. ¹

Projects and Initiatives

The most significant legislative campaign associated with Tenants PAC was its role in the 2019 passage of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA). With the state’s existing rent laws set to expire in 2019 and following the Democratic takeover of the state Senate in 2018, a coalition of tenant organizations mounted a concerted lobbying and direct-action campaign to expand rather than merely renew those laws. ^{1  2}

This coalition raised and spent $500,000 to support renewing and expanding tenancy protections. Notably, this law eliminated the previous geographic restriction that limited the ability to institute rent control to the counties making up and surrounding New York City. With this geographic barrier broken, the group began to campaign elsewhere in the state for municipalities to begin adopting rent control and other policies that favor tenants. ³

Leadership

Michael McKee was the founder of Tenants PAC and its primary spokesperson and director until his death in October 2025. McKee became involved in tenants’ rights and activism in 1970 after a dispute with a landlord. He would eventually lead a rent strike which led to the first collective bargaining agreement between the landlord and the building tenants. ⁴

McKee maintained that rent control was the best policy for affordable housing, and dismissed arguments that it had reduced the supply of housing, claiming instead the lack of new construction was due to increasing costs, zoning, changes in the federal tax code, and the lack of public funding for housing construction. ⁴

McKee stated in a 2019 interview that he had become “more left” as he grew older. ⁴