Xblog

Eminent domain is kind of the third rail of property law. Nobody ever wants to touch it, because you always look like some political bully picking on the little guy. In Star Trek lingo, sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but that never makes for good politics.

Here’s the thing though: currently, we mostly worry about eminent domain abuse in the context where someone leverages the government to buy some property for less than they should. If you tilt the balance back too far the other way though, then the abuse comes when someone leverages the government to overpay for some property that they have. Looking at 90, I worry that this kind of scenario could happen.

The other problem with 90 is that it seems to have a number of legally vague areas. Even the legal analyst isn’t entirely sure what some parts of the bill mean, which means it is going to be up to the courts to discern the meaning (and discerning the meaning from propositions is terribly difficult). I just don’t like the idea of having principles of property law being so ambiguous, nor do I like the notion of thousands of lawsuits that have clogged up Oregon in the two years since they passed a similar measure.

The really scary provision in this bill though is the one whereby land owners can sue if zoning changes cause a loss of property value. Given how many problems we already have in California that require zoning changes, I’m not sure how excited I am about having yet another impediment. The flip side is that a lot of our current zoning problems relate to zoning changes to reduce development, when what is really needed is increased development, and proposition 90 would tend to push things in the other direction.

I think I’m going to vote this one down because of all the legal ambiguities it would create, and because I kind of like where eminent domain is right now: as a tool so despised that it can only be safely employed by a politician if there is substantial support for it in the community.