The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law despite property owners’ strong arguments that the mandate constituted both a per se physical taking and regulatory taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal this term.

For now, the egregious law stands.

It would have hardly been missed. The rent stabilization law represents a startling threat to private property rights. For more than 50 years, it has also failed to deliver on its supposed goal: more abundant affordable housing.

[I suspect that the court saw this as a political rather than constitutional issue. Rent control and stabilization laws have a long history in the US, especially in the urban cores. They’re always bad policy, but the idea that it represents an unconstitutional taking is a novel approach. Judicial modesty would prescribe a referral back to legislatures with this complaint, at least unless and until a circuit split on this issue arises. Activists on this front may want to challenge similar laws in other states that might get more sympathetic hearings from other appellate circuits, but this still seems like a reach. — Ed]