SACRAMENTO — The president of the California NAACP has long resisted criticism that she melds the group’s interests with those of her political consulting firm, which takes in large fees for working on campaigns that the civil rights organization backs.

Critics say Alice Huffman is doing it again on what is shaping up to be one of the most bitterly contested measures on the November ballot — Proposition 10, which would repeal a state law that limits cities’ ability to impose rent control.

The state NAACP’s 28-member executive committee voted in May to oppose Prop. 10. Huffman said the group agreed with arguments that allowing stricter forms of rent control would discourage housing construction and therefore hurt low-income tenants.

A month after the NAACP voted, Huffman said, her AC Public Affairs political consulting firm in Sacramento signed a deal to be a lead consultant on the opposition’s $800,000 campaign targeting African American voters through mailers and workers who will go door-to-door.

Huffman said her firm is being paid a $25,000 monthly retainer. Through July, AC Public Affairs had been paid $66,000, according to the No on Prop. 10 campaign, one of four ballot measure committees working against the initiative.

Prop. 10 would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995, which banned local rent control on multiunit housing built after that date and on all single-family homes. In some cities that already had rent control, the cutoff date for price caps is earlier — in San Francisco, for example, all housing built after 1979 is exempt from controls.

In addition to repealing those restrictions, Prop. 10 would allow price caps on units when a tenant moves out, known as vacancy control.

The initiative would not impose rent control itself — instead, it would allow cities and their voters to do so.

Proponents say Prop. 10 will help low-income communities counteract skyrocketing rents, which disproportionally affect minorities. Black and Hispanic households are about twice as likely as white households to rent, according to a nationwide Pew Research Center analysis. And, in California, black and Hispanic households are far more likely to be rent-burdened, meaning they spend 30 percent or more of their income on rent, according to a report last year by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

“Black leaders have been calling for the repeal of Costa-Hawkins for years, because we know that rent control is essential to ensuring that we still have space in our changing cities,” said Damien Goodmon, a Los Angeles activist who is directing the pro-Prop. 10 campaign.

Huffman, however, said she and the state NAACP’s other board members don’t believe Prop. 10 will help anyone, let alone people of color.

“I see this initiative as misleading,” Huffman said. “I looked at it and I had my executive committee look at it, and we said it’s not going to do anything to create more affordable housing. If anything, it’s going to squeeze the market.”

Huffman said the state NAACP required a majority vote of its board to take a position on Prop. 10. The group’s No. 2 official, former Assemblywoman Gwen Moore, did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment. Its No. 3 official, Rick Callender, emailed that he was out of the country and could not comment.

Two other executive committee members did not respond to requests for comment, and efforts to reach other members were unsuccessful.

Huffman said she does not accept a contract as a political consultant until the state NAACP takes a position, and that she works only on campaigns that align with the group’s stands.

She said that means the firm loses out on many contracts.

“I can’t get the contracts I could get before I was president of the NAACP,” said Huffman, 82, who started her firm in 1988 and has headed the civil rights organization since 1999. “I never take a contract that is different from the NAACP’s position.”

Goodmon said Huffman has led the state NAACP away from causes that would benefit African Americans.

“Alice Huffman, who has for years been known for taking money from industries that do harm to the black community, is at it again,” said Goodmon, who is African American. “She’s been doing this for years.”

Huffman heard similar accusations when her firm was paid $200,000 in 2006 by a campaign funded by Philip Morris to work against a $2.60-per-pack cigarette tax on the state ballot to fund health services. The state NAACP had sided with the tobacco giant in opposing the tax, which was defeated.

In 2016, the state NAACP reversed course and supported a ballot measure to increase cigarette taxes by $2 a pack, again to fund health-related services. Huffman’s firm was hired by proponents for $80,000.

Her firm also was paid consulting fees in 2005 by campaigns run by pharmaceutical companies. That year, two competing measures were on the state ballot aimed at lowering prescription drugs costs — one pushed by labor and consumer groups and another by the pharmaceutical industry.

The California NAACP sided with the drug companies’ campaigns. Huffman worked on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry’s ballot measure and against the labor-backed proposition. Both measures failed.

The rent control measure isn’t the only one on which Huffman’s political consulting firm is working during this year’s campaign. AC Public Affairs has also been paid $35,000 in consulting fees by opponents of Proposition 8, which would cap charges at kidney dialysis clinics. The state NAACP is opposed to Prop. 8.

Jessica Levinson, who teaches campaign ethics and political law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the setup appears to be a symbiotic relationship that benefits Huffman, “but that’s not necessarily morally bereft.”

Levinson said her concern is whether those who look to the NAACP to help them form opinions on ballot measures know about the arrangement.

“They should know that some of the decisions that are being made are by hired guns for those ballot measures,” Levinson said.

Goodmon said the NAACP is not working in African Americans’ best interests in opposing Prop. 10.

“They (Huffman and the state NAACP) are the outliers on this,” Goodmon said. “No other civil rights group, no other black housing groups are opposing this measure.”

Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio, who is running a different ballot measure committee that is opposing the rent control measure, said the dividing lines on Prop. 10 aren’t as clear-cut as Goodmon and other proponents make them out to be.

The California Democratic Party voted to support the measure, but Gavin Newsom, the Democrat who is running to replace Gov. Jerry Brown, is against it.

“There are a lot of progressives that think it is the worst possible thing you can do because it stops housing construction,” Maviglio said. “There are many philosophical, racial and income levels that are split on this. It affects many people. Everyone is weighing in.”

Fifteen California cities have some form of rent control. Legislative hearings this year to consider a measure that would have allowed expanded rent control brought hundreds of people to Sacramento, both in support and opposition.

The state NAACP did not take a position on the bill, which was worded similarly to Prop. 10. The measure died in January.

The Prop. 10 race is expected to be one of the costliest on the November ballot, with much of the spending coming from opponents. San Mateo real estate investment company Essex Property Trust and Orange County developer Michael Hayde have accounted for much of the nearly $21 million raised so far by opponents.

By comparison, proponents have raised just over $2.5 million, primarily from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and its president, Michael Weinstein, according to filings from the secretary of state’s office. On Wednesday, Weinstein announced another $10 million would be added to the campaign.

Huffman said she supports rent control, but does not believe a full repeal of Costa-Hawkins is the answer. She said that if Prop. 10 passes, “wealthy corporate landlords” will turn rent-controlled apartments into condominiums or short-term rentals to bypass new caps on rents.

Landlords are funding the campaign that is paying Huffman to help defeat Prop. 10. Huffman said she was approached by two of the campaigns opposing the initiative after the NAACP voted to oppose it. She said she went with the campaign that offered the most because it allows her to have the biggest impact.

“I took the highest bidder on the ‘no’ side, to be honest,” Huffman said. “I don’t make any apologies. I’m a woman in business, and if I can get business I go after it.”

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez