Planned Confusion - #10
Note: This is part of a series. Last week, I wrote about the torrent of look-alike initiatives in the Northwest--933 in Washington; 154 in Montana; and "This House is My Home" in Idaho--and I pointed out their eerie similarity to one another.
All three Northwest property initiatives lead off with booming rhetoric about abuses of eminent domain. In reality, however, the initiatives are about an entirely different issue (one that I'll describe in a moment). And all three measures use the same bait-and-switch tactic to mislead to voters.
Why would the initiatives all do the same thing? Could it be part of a coordinated national strategy?
In a recent how-to manual, helpfully subtitled: "Exporting Oregon's Measure 37 to Other States," the Reason Foundation, a pro-business think-tank based in Los Angeles, laid out the strategy: confuse voters.
First, some history.
In 2005, a divided US Supreme Court ruled that governments can use the power of eminent domain to seize property and turn it over to a private party for economic development. The case, Kelo v. City of New London, enlarged the role of eminent domain beyond its traditional use as a tool for building infrastructure, such as roads, that sometimes requires cutting across private property. (Governments must, of course, compensate property owners for seized property.)
Predictably, Kelo upset people, especially people in poor communities, who worried that governments would abuse their power to enrich private developers. A number of states quickly passed legislation to prevent Kelo-style eminent domain. Washington, however, was not among these states because--and this is important for I-933--it is already prohibited by the state constitution.
Kelo also had another side effect. It provided a political smokescreen for developers and speculators to pass legislation that they had long dreamed of. If passing a law like Oregon's Measure 37--a pay-or-waive scheme that we've studied here--was politically infeasible, Kelo was the perfect Trojan horse.
