Journalist: Ean Cloud (OSU)
The “Itemized Fee Disclosure” act is a bill that Tulsa University Lobbyist Morgan Williams has been given, according to him, the near-impossible task of opposing. Put simply, the bill eliminates “junk fees” and, according to the bill, makes landlords have to be upfront about any extra fees, and given vagueness, they cannot be enforced, have to be explicitly stated up front. Any vagueness or unexpected price hike are not allowed and can’t be enforced. Now, no bill ever written was perfect, so no matter what, there were bound to be pros and cons.
According to Williams, while the bill codified common sense protection for tenants, it also may constitute government overreach in how landlords run their business. Yet, Williams could still appreciate the honesty behind the words, and has high hopes for addressing price gouging, fluffing fees, and combating those landlords on the bad side of things who will try their best to nickel and dime their tenants. However, inevitably, this was not what all of O.I.L. felt.
While feeling a bit spread thin with her roles as a House Rep, Moot, and even sergeant of arms, UT delegate Sophia Rehman was able to give her take on the same legislation. “I love transparency” she said, and according to Rehman, that was what she liked the most in the nascent bill. However, while the foundation was good, she pointed out that there were no provisions in the bill for emergency funds, or any middle-of-the-year necessary maintenance, and it needed way more clarification to fully round out the bill. However, Rehman dictated that she would not vote for the bill if it came to her table. To her, the issue is not as pressing as it is made out to be, and the lack of clarification could have more harm than good to the poor.
Meanwhile, house member Alex McGregor (representing ECU) had a much more “bird-eye-view” on the situation. While he loved the transparency, which according to him, would improve renter-tenant communication by a large margin, he had a different view. He was worried that all this would make it way easier to rent a house, stopping many Americans from eventually owning homes of their own, and instead renting their whole lives, making those at the top richer over a longer period of time. Despite this, he said he would vote yes on the bill if it came to him, citing that the pros far outweighed the cons.