How Mintz’s Elissa Flynn‑Poppey Won the Court Battle Over Massachusetts Rent Control

When the idea of statewide rent control resurfaced in Massachusetts last spring, most observers assumed the fight would be fought in the streets or at the ballot box. Instead, it landed in a courtroom, and the courtroom’s star was Elissa Flynn‑Poppey, the seasoned chair of Mintz’s government law practice.

Flynn‑Poppey was tapped in January 2026 by a coalition of opponents assembled by political‑consulting veterans Lynda Tocci of Dewey Square Group and Dan Cence of Issues Management Group. The coalition needed a lawyer who understood both the nitty‑gritty of ballot‑measure financing and the constitutional nuances that can derail a petition. Flynn‑Poppey fit the bill perfectly, having cut her teeth as deputy general counsel in Governor Mitt Romney’s 2003‑2007 administration, where she prepared fiscal‑impact analyses for dozens of ballot proposals.

After joining Mintz in 2005 and learning the ropes from the late Bob Popeo, Flynn‑Poppey built a résumé that reads like a litany of the state’s most contentious policy fights – the millionaires tax, Uber and Lyft regulations, transgender‑rights litigation, and the battle over nurse‑staffing ratios. Yet none of those seemed to test her skill set quite like the rent‑control question, which proposed to freeze rents on a massive scale across the Commonwealth.

The legal team she assembled was a tight‑knit group: Ed Daley, who would present oral arguments before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in May 2026; Kadie Martin; and Michael Molstad. Their strategy hinged on a single, stark constitutional snag – the ballot question’s carve‑out for religious properties. The court found that exemption ran afoul of the state constitution’s separation‑of‑church‑and‑state clause, and in June 2026 it issued a ruling that effectively stopped the measure from advancing.

“The court made clear that a ballot question can’t give special treatment to a class of property without a solid constitutional footing,” Flynn‑Poppey told reporters after the decision. “If the proponents want to try again, they’ll need a much tighter draft – probably not before the 2028 cycle.”

The decision reverberated beyond the legal community. At a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce gathering, Governor Maura Healey’s housing secretary, Juana Matias, praised the outcome as a win for “business‑friendly, market‑based housing solutions.” She was joined on the panel by Doug Howgate of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, Arnold Ventures’ Jenny Schuetz, and NAIOP Massachusetts CEO Tamara Small – all of whom echoed the sentiment that rent control, as proposed, would have hampered new construction and investment.

Even with the court’s rebuke, the debate over rent control isn’t dead. Lawmakers are now eyeing zoning reforms in the state budget, and a supplemental budget package is slated to include a sales‑tax exemption for building‑material purchases – a move that, according to some analysts, could add thousands of new units over the next decade.

For Flynn‑Poppey, the win is another notch in a career marked by high‑stakes litigation. “Every case is about the details,” she said, smiling. “And sometimes the devil’s in the fine print.”