A costly and potentially bruising campaign is taking shape over rent control in California, with deep-pocketed Los Angeles activist Michael Weinstein bankrolling a proposed November ballot initiative to repeal a state law that sets tight limits on the type of housing covered under local rent control laws.

“Nobody’s fighting for the tenant,” said Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who partly funded the Proposition 61, the 2016 fight over prescription drug costs that became the most expensive initiative that year, with total spending at roughly $130 million.