Amicus Brief in Defense of Inclusionary Zoning: On June 24, 2026, PRRAC and our partners at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in support of the appellee in redT Homes, LLC v. City & County of Denver. In redT Homes, LLC, a developer brought a Takings Clause challenge to Denver’s inclusionary zoning policy, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado granted Denver’s motion to dismiss that lawsuit. The plaintiffs appealed that ruling to the circuit court. Inclusionary zoning is a policy whereby local governments require covered developers to set aside a portion of the units in their projects for sale or rental to low- or moderate-income households at affordable rates. Well-designed inclusionary zoning policies in the correct market conditions can increase the supply of affordable housing and foster racial and socioeconomic integration while not having any dampening effect on housing supply. Courts have consistently rejected Takings Clause challenges to these policies. Our brief highlights the effectiveness of inclusionary zoning, its particular importance in light of the racialized harms of Denver’s housing affordability crisis, and how the application of the correct regulatory takings framework for evaluating this type of policy dictates affirmance of the lower court’s dismissal.
Other news and resources
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Rent Control Initiative Decision: On June 23, 2026, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a decisionholding that a proposed statewide rent control initiative is not eligible to be on the ballot because the initiative’s text implicated the excluded matter of religion due to an exemption in the initiative text for units in properties operated for religious purposes. PRRAC, with Community Legal Aid, had filed an amicus brief in support of the eligibility of the initiative for the ballot, but that brief did not address the issue of that exemption. The decision is a real setback for the tenant movement in Massachusetts, but the powerful organizers, including at Homes for All Massachusetts, who gathered the signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot have build the power to bounce back.
Buy Your Ticket to Drafting Justice: A Summer Celebration of Movement Wins: We are excited to invite you to PRRAC’s inaugural Drafting Justice, a summer gathering dedicated to celebrating recent wins in civil rights and affordable housing. The evening will be hosted on Thursday, July 16th from 6 PM to 9 PM at the new Atlas Brew Works in the Bridge District of Washington, D.C. You can purchase your tickets here.
A Break from the Parade of Horribles – LGBTQ+ History Trivia Edition: In this Update’s installment of A Break from the Parade of Horribles, we are presenting a LGBTQ+ history trivia quiz in honor of Pride Month. Respond by email (to tdelgo@prrac.org) with your answers by the end of the day tomorrow, June 26th. We have some great prizes, including a book and some PRRAC swag (a very nice camping mug), in store for the winners. Of course, this is all on the honor system, so no Googling! No theme or meta this time – just some hopefully interesting and enlightening facts!
1) What woman played a role in the 1969 Stonewall uprising that helped catalyze the gay rights movement and cofounded the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) the following year?
a. Renée Richards
b. Marsha Johnson
c. Barbara Smith
d. Laverne Cox
2) What modernist author (and mentor to other writers) is the namesake of a political club for LGBTQ+ Democrats in the District of Columbia?
a. Gertrude Stein
b. Claude McKay
c. Virginia Woolf
d. Ernest Hemingway
3) In what Supreme Court decision did Justice Anthony Kennedy write, in overturning the Court’s prior decision upholding ban on consensual sodomy in Bowers v. Hardwick, that “[t]he right the petitioners seek in this case has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries. There has been no showing that in this country the governmental interest in circumscribing personal choice is somehow more legitimate or urgent”?
a. Griswold v. Connecticut
b. Romer v. Evans
c. Texas v. Johnson
d. Lawrence v. Texas
4) In what heavily Irish-American city did the St. Pat’s for All parade emerge as an inclusive alternative to a larger St. Patrick’s Day parade after the organizers of the main event refused to allow a group of LGBTQ+ Irish-Americans to march under their own banner?
a. Boston
b. New York City
c. Philadelphia
d. Buffalo
5) What LGBTQ+ poet and writer authored the 1979 essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”?
a. June Jordan
b. Elizabeth Bishop
c. Audre Lorde
d. Adrienne Rich
