UPDATE 11/8/06 7:40 a.m.
- With essentially all precints reporting and roughly 60 percent of ballots counted, Washington’s I-933 is losing 58 (no) to 42 (yes). Most of the counties with large numbers of ballots still to count have so far leaned heavily toward “no.”
- With almost every precint reporting, Idaho’s Proposition 2 suffered a resounding rejection, 72 (no) to 28 (yes).
- Nearly all of California’s precints have reported and Proposition 90 is going down 52.5 (no) to 47.5 (yes).
- The only blot on the otherwise wholesale rejection was Arizona, where Proposition 207 appears to have won 65 (yes) to 35 (no).
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As of 11:30 p.m. results are looking good for the 2006 “property rights” ballot measures.
- Washington’s I-933 is going down to a decisive 57 to 43 defeat. With a comfortable margin of more than 120,000 votes, it looks like 933 has been handily defeated.
- In Idaho, Proposition 2 is losing by a stunning (and somewhat unbelievable) margin of 77 to 23. (450 of 951 precincts reporting)
- In California, Proposition 90 is, so far, losing narrowly: 52 to 48.
- No reliable reporting yet from Arizona. (Early numbers had Prop 207 ahead by an almost 2 to 1 margin.)
Together with the judicial defeats in Nevada and Montana, it looks as though “property rights” activists have suffered a round defeat. Voters saw through the deceptions of Howie Rich & Co.
Obviously, the numbers I’ve cited here will change. But—fingers crossed—2006 will mark a time when communities chose to preserve their traditions of local decision-making. This is a victory for democracy at its most basic level.
Dan
Credit must be paid to Eric for his tireless work on the PPR/”regulatory takings” issue. All that was needed to defeat this extremist initiative was a little public education, and Eric delivered it in spades.Well done sir.
Land Use Watch
Okay, but eminent domain measures passed in Oregon, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina… not sure if they were all this cycle or not, though this article (http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/08/real_estate/kelos_revenge/) suggests they were.
Land Use Watch
Also noteworthy is passage of bond measures for preservation, including prop 84 in california (5 billion) and measure 26-80 in portland (250 million)… any others?
eldan
If I understand it right (big if, admittedly), the measures that passed are much smaller in scope; specifically banning the taking of property under eminent domain (and possibly only for private uses, as in the Kelo case, but not as in “we need to build new infrastructure here”), as opposed to restricting all land-use planning. If so, then I’m not sure these are in any way a bad thing – they just address the specific issue that Kelo vs New London raised.And yeah, I’ll second Dan here. That was a sterling effort, and more so than with most initiative campaigns I think it was information that was needed to win.
Eric de Place
Thanks, guys.Eldan, you’re right. The measures that passed in other states were limited in scope to eminent domain reform. But that’s a completely seperate issue from regulatory takings– an issue that was bundled together with eminent domain reform in ID, MT, NV, CA, and AZ. It was a deliberate deception; an intent to confuse voters and it (mostly) didn’t work. Only AZ passed both. Supporters sometimes try to maintain that the two issues are really the same, but that’s just plain wrong. There’s a difference between “condemnation” and “inverse condemnation.” A big one.