I'm a local, soon-to-be-retiring real estate
broker. We live in Santa Barbara. In the last two weeks we've received several
hard-core, right-wing flyers in the mail disparaging two Democratic candidates
currently running for office. The flyers called the candidates names, had ugly
imagery, and were credited at the bottom to the California Association of
Realtors (CAR). California Realtors are required to be members of and pay dues
to CAR. California real estate documents, such as the Residential Purchase
Agreement, and the Residential Listing Agreement are provided to us by CAR and
have the CAR name on them. My clients who have received this flyer and look at
the docs I give them will see they both have the name CAR them. Being
associated with hard-core, right-wing propaganda is not a plus for most of the
Realtors of California.
CAR has a PAC that puts out political
material, but they did not poll us Realtors as to how the funded by us PAC
should behave, when they took our dues. It is disturbing and unfair that the
required dues of all California Realtors are being used to promote hard core
political propaganda, and that every real estate transaction in the state, if
they want to or not, promotes a CAR that puts forth divisive, opinionated,
material.
The CAR mission is devoted to protecting the
interests of real estate, but in their slandering of Democrats, they have shown
a strong disregard for the effects of climate change, which we know well here
in Santa Barbara. The GOP has left the perils of climate change entirely to
others to try and fix. CAR, if this is how you protect real estate, no thank
you.