Is Beto running for a local zoning board?

“Rich people are going to have to allow — or be forced to allow — lower-income people to live near them,” the 2020 Democratic candidate said at a recent campaign event.

One relevant question, though not the one for today, is whether the rich even have the power, to “allow” or prevent poor people from living near them. The rich can afford to pay high prices, which is a form of power, but they are not powerful enough to dictate prices or rents.

But as O’Rourke put it, “We force lower-income working Americans to drive one, two, three hours in either direction to get to their jobs, very often minimum wage jobs, so they’re working two or three of them right now.”

This is so, so specific. Who is he even talking about that is driving three hours to work two or three minimum wage-paying jobs?

Only about 4.9% of employed Americans work more than one job — a number that has been essentially unchanged since 2010, and lower today than it was before that. Only 542,000 American workers — a tiny fraction of that number — actually make the minimum wage at an hourly job.

So, it is not even clear how this is supposed to work mathematically. But whatever.

“What if,” he continued, “we invested in housing that was closer to where you work?”

Later, on social media, the congressman’s Twitter account stated, “Living close to work shouldn’t be a luxury for the rich. It’s a right for everyone.”

O’Rourke also endorsed high-speed rail, a largely unrelated transportation goodie and Democratic fantasy that just will not die.

“What if we invested,” he asked, “in high-speed rail and in transit in all of our cities to make sure that if you do not have a car or do not want to use a car, you will not need to have one or you will not be penalized for not having one right now?”

O’Rourke added, “Having cities that are smarter, that are denser, that have people living closer to where they work and where their families are, to reduce our impact on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, but also to just to improve the quality of life.”

This may not be a terrible goal — after all, people increasingly want to live in cities. But this is reflected by rising rents and home prices. To claim a “right” to live near one’s place of work is to imply a government power to make homeowners accept less than market value to rent or sell their property. That is a terrible idea, and what’s more, this sort of thinking by left-wing housing activists from New York to San Francisco continues to cause dire housing shortages and ludicrous housing prices.

Either way, this is something that no president or Congress will have any part in settling. The fact that O’Rourke is discussing it is just bizarre. This is an issue for a local zoning board, which can act to make it easier for landlords to make units available for rent by breaking up houses in residential areas into apartments. This is not a national presidential issue.