Every month, tenants in more than 14,000 California rental properties fork over huge portions of their paychecks to Blackstone, a Wall Street asset-management company that’s notoriously reluctant to perform maintenance duties. This year, Blackstone has been throwing millions of dollars of that money into the fight against Proposition 10, a ballot measure that would pave the way for rent control across the state.

Or to put it another way: a massive corporation is using working people as ATMs, and then leveraging the money it extracts from them to purchase political influence, thus protecting its ability to continue wringing renters dry — all while rents skyrocket, the eviction and homelessness crises worsen, and the average working-class Californian’s standard of living plummets.

The corporation’s behavior is no surprise; giant companies have been known to interfere in American politics from time to time. But it’s worth remarking on in this instance, because the stakes are so high and the outcome is so uncertain. 41 percent of Californians support the rent control ballot measure, 38 percent oppose it, and 21 percent remain undecided. The next few days will feature a dramatic showdown between tenants and billionaires. There’s no telling who will emerge victorious.