If you want proof of the staying power of a genuinely bad idea, look no further than the primary ballot in Jackson County, Oregon. Voters there will decide on two county charter amendments. One is bizarre, one is both bizarre and pernicious, and both are backed by a Tea Party organization with national reach.
The amendments are an attempt to reanimate the corpse of Measure 37, an ill-conceived ballot initiative that would have yielded a truckload of unintended consequences had Oregon voters not quickly repealed it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Here’s the backstory. In 2004, Oregon passed Measure 37, under which any landowner who felt that a regulation reduced the “value” of his or her property would be eligible for a cash payment from the government or a waiver from the regulation. (Sometimes called “pay-or-waive” laws, these kinds of laws amount to drastic expansions of the legal meaning of a “regulatory taking“.)
Can’t build a subdivision on your farmland? The government would have to pay you or waive the law. There were logging companies that wanted to clearcut their forests unless they were paid not to, while other forest landowners threatened to build housing developments in working forests. One fellow claimed the government needed to pay him to prevent him from mining inside a national monument.
