Yesterday afternoon the Seattle City Council passed (8-1) a resolution asking the state Legislature to lift the state ban on rent control (and other rent regulations). This resolution is not the one I wrote about last week. Last week’s resolution, which received a tie vote in committee, explicitly endorsed rent control or something like it:

The prohibition of ordinances or other provisions which regulate the amount of rent, as reflected in RCW 35.21.830, is an impediment to fair housing in the City of Seattle and, but for the prohibition in RCW 35.21.830, this Council would endeavor to design and enact ordinances or other provisions regulating the amount of rent appropriate to the City of Seattle. . . . The State of Washington should repeal or modify RCW 35.21.830 so as not to remain a barrier to fair housing in Seattle or anywhere else in the State.

As the Seattle Times reports, the resolution that passed yesterday was “introduced in a last-minute maneuver by Council President Tim Burgess.” If it asserts an opinion on rent control, I’d say it’s that Seattle should not impose it:

The City Council supports efforts by the State Legislature to allow local governments to propose ordinances that significantly increase the supply of rent-restricted units and that protect tenants from sudden and dramatic rent increases, without causing a negative impact on the quality or quantity of housing supply, by modifying or repealing RCW 35.21.830. The City Council requests that the Office of Intergovernmental Relations incorporate this position into the City’s forthcoming 2016 State Legislative Agenda.

(Emphasis added.) Rent control, practically by definition, has a negative impact on the quality and quantity of housing supply. Even Burgess said that rent control is a “failed public policy.”