Second Circuit rejects latest Takings Clause challenge to rent stabilization

As noted in today’s Second Circuit opinion, there have been nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to New York’s rent regulation regime over the years. The court of appeals rejected the latest challenge, brought by Mayer Brown on behalf of landlords, arguing that the rent-stabilization laws were facially unconstitutional as physical takings and irrational in violation of the substantive due process clause. Perhaps the landlords count on the rightward drift in the Supreme Court to cause the Court to be more hospitable to claims like these, which rest on similar legal theories as claims arguing that states and localities violated the Constitution by requiring businesses to close to the public in the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.