Daily Score Blog

A new poll just released shows that Oregon voters now oppose Measure 37 by a nearly 2 to 1 margin. That's a shocking reversal from just two years ago the measure won 61 percent support.

But the Measure 37 backlash is not terribly surprising given our understanding of the effects of the measure. In our recent report, Property Wrongs, Sightline tells the stories of Oregon residents who claim they were sold a bill of goods -- that they didn't fully understand what they were signing up for when they voted "yes."

So there's that. And now for the "inside baseball" stuff...

 Being just a trifle interested in how to talk about the 2006 property rights ballot measures, I found a couple of interesting elements in the poll results: 

• Respondents who say they "have heard a lot" about Measure 37 are much more likely to dislike the measure, for a number of reasons. 
• After respondents weighed in on their current support for Measure 37, they were read a list of real life consequences of the law. The most objectionable result? The proposed mine and energy plant in a national monument.

Makes me think that education about the 2006 copycat ballot measures may be an effective antidote to them. And perhaps it's wise to emphasize the disastrous consequences for our natural heritage.

Poll details here. It was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. And it was commissioned by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and the Isaak Walton League of America, both of which take a dim view of 37 and the copycat measures in 2006.

For a moment, let's just ignore the political context of this NYTimes article (about how incumbents are having difficulty capitalizing on the "strong economy" in this fall's US election).  As ur-blogger Matthew Yglesias points out, there's something seriously amiss with reporting that describes the economy thus...

...the economy has not looked so good in a long time.

...the Dow Jones industrial average has finally returned to its glory days of the late 1990’s, setting records almost daily...

...glowing economic statistics...

....and so on, all with the subtext, "Hey, we're doing great!!!" -- all while burying the followng down in the bowels of paragraph 30:

[F]or many voters, their economic prospects do not feel as great as overall statistics might imply... {t}he wages of ordinary workers... have just started to improve after several years of falling short or barely keeping up with inflation.

The tens of millions of people lacking health insurance and the steady shrinkage in traditional pensions have also added to the sense of personal insecurity.

Ok, then -- the economy is doing great, it's just that, you know, actual people aren't doing that well.

On Monday night I was down in Vancouver, Washington participating in a panel debate on I-933. It was heated at times, like any old fashioned civic debate should be. But I was troubled to read the newspaper coverage the following morning.

Here's the bit that stuck in my craw:

Zimmerman said farmers resorted to I-933 because they couldn't get state government to take their concerns seriously.

He saved most of his ire for the critical areas ordinances that counties must update under the GMA. Those ordinances will require farmers to set aside as much as 250 feet on either side of streams and wetlands for salmon and wildlife habitat. That's unfair, he said, because developers could pave over that property and leave nothing for fish or wildlife.

What's wrong with that coverage? Well, it overlooks a few key things: 

1. During the debate Zimmerman was forced to admit that the 250 foot buffer he was complaining about was only a proposal -- a proposal that was withdrawn because of community opposition.
2. And the fact that the proposal was withdrawn is pretty darn good evidence that state government does, in fact, take his concerns seriously.
3. Finally, developers cannot pave over the property and leave nothing for wildlife. Why? Because the property he was referring to is zoned agricultural under current law. Exactly the sort of protection that may vanish under 933.

So Zimmerman's example is not only untrue, it turns out to actually suggest that our current practices, however imperfect, can work fairly well.

Unfortunately, the newspaper article neither refutes his assertions nor mentions his subsequent confession in the debate. And by not putting Zimmerman's claims between quotation marks, it lends them the weight of fact -- a gravity that they certainly do not deserve.