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.

This one probably ought to be voted down just because it is so insanely long and complex. A general rule of thumb with propositions is that if they are long and complicated, there are undoubtedly going to be some unexpected “gotchas” later on down the line. That said, campaign finance measures are inevitably long and complex, because of all the hijinks that inevitably ensues to get around them, so perhaps proposition 89 proponents can be be given a by on this.

It’s late, and I’m tired, and there is just too much in this one to write about. I could probably spend a few weeks on it (surprisingly, the press has for the most part ignored it). So, I’m going to play it lazy and refer to an article in the LA Times which kind of summarizes my thoughts on the measure.

Maybe I have a special affection for orphaned propositions or something, but I’m having a hard time turning this one down. It is focused on class size reduction and school supplies for K-12 education, with a bit more for safety and security measures and new construction at schools. Opponents seem to pick it apart with all kinds of arguments, many of which don’t bear up to scrutiny.

The critiques I’ve seen so far are:

1) It won’t fund new construction in most California schools. Fair enough, but this isn’t a big omnibus bond to can pay for new construction state wide. It only allocates $85 million for school construction or modernization. Most of the money is for class size reduction and teaching supplies, which most schools would qualify for.

2) Money collected in one community might get spent elsewhere. Frankly, one of the crimes of our education system is that more money is spent on education in wealthier neighbourhoods. Spend the money where it can do the most good. Fine by me.

3) It’s the first state wide tax imposed since 1910, and if it passes we’ll get more. Hey, if that means they’ll do that instead of recurring bond measures that waste tax dollars on interest payments, I’m all for it!

4) The new tax is never ending. I must have missed the memo that went out suggesting that education spending is only a short term state obligation. Furthermore, while the tax is neverending, the impact of it over time will decline due to inflation. If anything I think the proponents should have added a clause that adjusted the tax for inflation.

5) Proposition 88 gives Scaramento politicians increased power to decide where and how to spend your money. We’re talking about fifty bucks here. Yes, that’s a lot given how much we straight jacket them right now, but even those fifty bucks have a enough restrictions that I’m quite confident the money will be spent in the right places.

I’m pretty sure this one is DOA, but I’d really like to understand why I shouldn’t vote for this one.

One of the best ways to get a proposition supported in California is to have George W. Bush go against something that Californians think should be addressed by the federal government, and then put in something that addresses the matter at a state level. This puts voters in this terribly quandary of having to support a state solution to what they feel is a federal problem or having to give Bush ammunition along the lines of “even California agrees with me”.

I find it helpful in such cases to ignore the larger context and focus on the specifics of the measure. There’s a lot to worry about here. For starters, there is this silly provision in the proposition that says that oil companies can’t pass on the increased costs to their customers. How the heck is that supposed to work? What kind of bizarro world do you have to live in to effectively legislate losses in to businesses? Well, it helps if oil companies are making huge profits right now, but of course the day will come when they aren’t, and then what will happen?

Then there’s the fun matter of even the impartial legislative analyst not being clear as to what the proposition means (and on important stuff like how much to charge as a severance tax). Even if this bill passes, you can anticipate years of court battles over this, which will cost California and oil companies a pretty penny without making any progress.

Then there’s the silly slogan about this proposition reducing our dependence on foreign oil (economics 101: if you pass a proposition that increases the costs of domestic production of a product while not impacting foreign production, will that increase or decrease the use of foreign production?). There’s a not too subtle implication that this will help get us unentangled from the middle east. I’ve got news for you: most of California’s “foreign” oil comes from within the US, Mexico and Canada. The middle east factors in mostly in that their supply levels effect the prices from our primary sources.

I like the notion of encouraging alternative energy initiatives. Given the strategic importance of energy, I think it even makes sense to fund some initiatives from out of government coffers. It just seems to me that given the purported goals of this bill, it’d make more sense if we were to slap import duties or additional transportation fees on oil imports, rather than on local oil production. As it is, California’s local supply of oil is very precariously positioned against demand, so much so that minor bumps in the supply lines cause major shifts in fuel prices, which is very disruptive to the economy.

Sorry Bill, I think I’m going to give this one a pass.

A short while ago, some folks tried to fund emergency rooms and hospitals with a new surcharge on phone bills. It turned out the electorate didn’t hate phone companies and those who used phones enough to vote the proposition in. So, this time we’re coming at it with more easily vilified targets (at least in California): tobacco smokers, growers, and vendors.

We hate smokers here in California. When I think about it, I’m surprised the folks behind prop 83 didn’t throw smoking on to the list of eligible crimes to improve their chances. How can you possibly vote against a measure that goes after smokers?

Well, first of all, let’s keep in mind here that smokers are really involved in the funding side of this equation. They are going to hit a massive tax increase per packet of cigarettes to help us fund emergency rooms and all other kinds of medical expenditures.

The real aspect of this bill is how it effects hospitals. One of the insane aspects of our private health care system in the US is that we still require hospitals to provide life saving health care to the uninsured. If they can’t pay, that’s the hospital’s problem. The logic is about as faulty as popular logic on tax policy that suggests one is cutting taxes if one reduces the tax rate, even if one doesn’t reduce spending. It’s silly, the bottom line is as long as you are okaying the spending (by requiring health care for the uninsured), you are okaying the bill as well. Sooner or later that money has to come from somewhere, or all your hospitals are going to declare bankruptcy.

Of course, by going the “save them and then try to make them pay even though they probably can’t” is horribly inefficient. You end up with people not getting cost saving preventative treatment but rather very expensive last-minute interventions. This leads to expensive bill collection expendatures for the hospital, and quite possibly bankruptcy for the patient. The bankruptcy process is just a more expensive way for the hospital not to get paid, and in order to make a profit that bill gets passed on to the rest of us in increased medical costs which finally present as… increased health care premiums.

So, we’re all paying for socialized medicine right now, but because we can’t just acknowledge it and build a system around it, it ends up being far more expensive for everyone. It’s kind of like the bond measures vs. tax increase situation that I’ve talked about on previous propositions. Proposition 86 attempts to buffer this insanity a bit by providing some funding from tobacco taxes.

My problem with this is that the measure doesn’t really address the fundamental problem, it just shakes down smokers to provide a small short term band aid on massive open wound. What I’d really like to see is a straight up or down vote on either going with socialized medicine or allowing hospitals to refuse patients they feel can’t pay for their services.

One other aspect of this bill that opponents have gone after is that it provides exceptions to anti-trust laws for hospitals trying to coordinate a emergency care (“how about you cover all cardio work on wednesdays when I give my specialist the day off?”). This just seems like another area where the existing system makes it far too difficult to provide medical services efficiently.

Okay, so my Canadian is showing a bit.

I’ve not really made up my mind on this one, but I’m leaning against it. It just seems like a bunch of half-measures that don’t come close to adequately solving the problem. The problem I have in voting it down is that our current situation seems so bad, even a half-measure seems better than nothing.

The ongoing battle over parental consent for abortions continues. I’m tempted to vote no on this one just to get the message across that I don’t want every election to be about parental consent.

Of course, they knew that, so this time it’s about parental notification instead of parental consent. So this time around the proposition would require the doctor has to tell a parent about an abortion, but they don’t need to get their consent.

The straw man argument against this bill is the notion of an abusive home, where the parent may be the one who got the minor pregnant in the first place. I’m sorry, but if that really is the state of affairs, something needed to be done long before a pregnancy was involved, and bringing the courts in at this point in time may be a good idea.

The straw man argument for this bill is the notion of young girls getting pregnant by older boyfriends and their parents never finding out about it because the girls get secret abortions (they sound so much more menacing with the word “secret” in front of them). Again, I’m sorry, but the secret abortion is probably the least of the problems here. You probably have secret sex going on, without the proper use of secret birth control, not to mention the risk of secret STD’s.

Roe v. Wade may yet go down in history as the US’s biggest legal boondoggle, not so much for the legal decision itself but for all that followed. Much as I support a woman’s right to choose, it seems like the debate on abortions in this country has become so polarized and bitter that reason ceases to be a factor in what is ultimately a very important and difficult situation.

Here’s what I think most reasonable parents would want: I should be involved in my children’s medical treatment regardless of the nature of the treatment. I don’t care if it’s cosmetic surgery, prescriptions, some embarrassing rash in the wrong place, or an abortion. If the doctor and my child think I’m somehow responsible for the medical problem, they can elect to get sign off by some social worker who acts as a proxy guardian for my child.

Ultimately, a yes or no on prop 85 isn’t going to give that to me one way or another. A yes will mean special forms and processes just for abortions, and a no will mean the existing special exemptions for abortions will remain in place. I’m going to give this one a thumbs down on the grounds that being pregnant does place a new set of adult responsibilities on you, and so I’d rather my child have additional authority to go along with those responsibilities rather than less, but this is very much a lesser of two evils kind of call.

This is $5.4 billion towards efforts to protect our supply of safe drinking water, flood control, as well as a fat chunk of change for various conservancies, rivers, lakes and streams. Oh and there’s some money for the state park system, forests, wildlife habitat protection, and protection for ranches and farms too (what, you thought this was just a water bond? ;-).

According to the detailed information on the bill, we already have $1.4 billion in unspent bond money for these kinds of projects. Throw in proposition 1E and you have to wonder why you should vote for yet another water bill.

Well, the reasons are many fold. First of all, 1E doesn’t really address availability of drinking water for emergencies (not sure about the remaining $1.4 billion). Nor does it do anything for all the various conservation funds for parks, ranches, farms, etc. Of course, these kinds of things are kind of on going commitments rather than one time infrastructure investments if you ask me. There are a few specific projects, like restoration of the San Joaquin River and Colorado River, but all in all, this seems to me like things that should be paid out of the general fund.

Oh, this bill also allows a lot of the spending to bypass normal contracting and procurement requirements (can you say, “No Bid Contract”?) because of the pressing need to spend this money quickly.

Sorry. I can’t possibly see why this kind of spending shouldn’t come from the state general fund and be subject to the usual contracting and procurement requirements. This stuff is important and can and is addressed by the legislature. Maybe it’s worth talking to your representative about increasing the budget for these projects, but I just can’t see floating a bond for this stuff.

Bravely I started reading through the text. It’s a pretty sweeping set of changes to our laws on sex crimes. Probably the most controversial aspect of the bill is the residency requirement, which apparently is ripe for legal challenges if the bill passes. Basically, it says if you are convicted of a felony sex crime, you can’t live within 2000 feet of schools or parks. That basically means you can’t live in most urban areas (maybe time to buy some real estate out in the desert?). It is worth pointing out that current California law requires that those who’ve committed sex offenses against children are grouped in to two categories: “high risk to reoffend” and not. Those who are deemed high risk to reoffend have to stay 2,640 feet (half a mile) away from a school, so they aren’t going to be significantly impacted by this law. The “low risk to reoffend” child sex offenders can get within a quarter mile of a school, so they would have to move some ways away. The killer though is people who’ve never committed sex crimes against any child will also have to move. Now none of these people are exactly deeming a great deal of compassion, but you have to wonder if it is society’s best interests to drive away people who could very well be zero risk to children away from schools.

The LA Times has a story on how a similar law is playing out in Iowa, with the story appearing to be that most everyone on the law enforcement side recognizing that it has been a disastrous debacle, and they’d really like to change the law, but they are worried about attack ads making them look like they are helping out sex offenders in an election year.

I would encourage anyone who is seriously considering voting yes on this bill to take a look at the Megan’s Law website, and in particular their FAQ. The key here is that the vast majority of sex offenders are not some creepy guy hanging out by the school yard you grabs kids and runs off with them. 90% of sex offenders have some kind of relationship with their victim, usually as a family member, a friend of the family, or someone the victim knows socially. Moving those sex offenders out in to rural areas which have fewer law enforcement resources to keep tabs on them hardly seems like a wise idea. Sex offenders can be anyone from an insane repeat child rapist to some grandfather who fifty years ago took advantage of the wrong drunk classmate. I like that the existing laws focus on the most dangerous offenders, specifically based on the likelihood that they’ll commit a sex crime again.

Then there’s the GPS requirement. You commit a sex crime, we hook you up to a GPS unit… for life. That’s right, even if your that seventy year old grandfather, trapped in a wheel chair (or even better, in a coma in the hospital!), we the tax payers of California need to know exactly where you are. The proponents of the law point out that Jessica Lunsford could have been protected if the convicted sex offender who kidnapped, assaulted and buried here alive had been hooked up to a GPS device (because surely he wouldn’t have dumped it when he decided to commit his crime, right?). This is a lame argument. If we strapped on GPS devices to everyone who ever took a pilots training course we might have had a better chance of preventing 9/11, but that hardly seems like a practical response now does it?

There are some other fun aspects to this law that aren’t getting highlighted much. It redefines various sex crimes from misdemeanors to felonies (including sodomy apparently). It shaves three years off the age difference for statutory rape. A lot of this seems like just a good overhaul of the state’s penal code for sex offenses, but I imagine those bits could easily be addressed by the legislature (you can’t honestly convince me that you could round up a majority of state legislators that would vote against needed reforms to such a bill).

One highly questionable part of the bill addresses pornography. It significantly broadens what qualifies as a felony offense with regards to pornography, particularly if minors are involved, so much so that there is a special exemption for “drawings, figurines, statues, or any film rated by the Motion Picture Association of America” and “live or recorded telephone messages when transmitted, disseminated, or distributed as part of a commercial transaction” (I love that part: if you pay for it, it’s legal, but if you are just talking dirty to your SO, it may be a crime). Now I’m sorry, but if you have to make a special exemption for the movie makers and phone sex operators, but you don’t make one for say a parent talking about a bad date with their child over the phone, something is seriously messed up. This might seem crazy, but part of the bill says, “It is not necessary to prove that the matter is obscene in order to establish a violation of this section.” Given that this applies to even simulated sex involving a minor, this might apply to old episodes of “Saved By the Bell” (admittedly, possession of such tapes might be considered a crime, but not a sex crime ;-).

Voter beware: propositions that target appear to target specific unwanted elements of society may very well have all kinds of unintended consequences under the covers. The question you have to ask yourself is: “why can’t my state legislature address this problem?”

Honestly, I can’t think of a good reason, and in this case there appear to be plenty of bad ones.

At this point I expect the eyes of most voters will have glazed over and they’ll just give up the struggle to look closely at this last bond measure in the 1 Plan agenda. That’s certainly what I want to do.

Nonetheless, let’s take a peak. Basically, this bill is going to save us from Katrina…. Okay, seriously, it would help us to shore up the Central Valley in particular against flooding that really could create a state wide disaster.

Generally, this sort of stuff has been paid for from a variety of sources: federal funding, the state general fund, and a lot of it has been contracted out to local governments. There’s kind of a strange structure to this, as a lot of the responsibility is in the hands of local governments even though the state has a serious interest in seeing that waterways and the water supply be maintained.

The killer part of this bill from me came from reading this detailed assessment: “The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has made rough estimates of the cost to repair and upgrade the Central Valley flood control system and levees in the Delta of between $7 billion and $12 billion.”

If it’s going to cost between $7-12 billion to fix the system, why are we issuing a bond for only $4 billion? Do we really think the feds and local government are going to make up the rest? I don’t see any kind of plan supporting this, so I’m forced to conclude that we can expect to see additional bonds in years to come.

I have to agree that we have a problem here with our water systems, and they aren’t sexy so politicians tend to have difficulty selling this problem, but our governor drew it to Bush’s attention recently, and the state legislature managed to find $500 million from the general fund to work on the problem this year. Particularly if you think the federal house might shift democratic this election, you have to think California is going to have an easier time getting federal money for this problem.

While I recognize the problem, the solution to me seems to be grabbing money from the general fund, petitioning the feds for more money, and letting local governments handle the rest, rather than packing on more debt to only partially solve the problem. That’s where the money has traditionally come from, and aside from the headline grabbing nature of Katrina, it seems like that’s the way things ought to continue to operate.

It’s hard not to acknowledge that California’s schools are in need of help. We just had a bond a few years ago that shunts a bunch of money their way, but the governor also grabbed a bunch of their money (breaking a promise in the process) to fund other bits of the state budget. Honestly, if you vote for this measure I don’t see how you can in good conscience also vote to reelect our governor, who played no small part in creating this problem.

Most of this money ($7.325 billion) is allocated for K-12 education, with the rest being thrown in to the community colleges, state colleges, and universities. Honestly, I wish more of it was going towards post secondary education. High quality state funded post secondary education was on of California’s best calling cards, and underfunding over the last few years has really started to erode that infrastructure.

As a matter of course, I’m more inclined to support education bonds than other bonds, because they do have the potential to provide a return on investment that exceeds the interest costs. Schools help reduce crime, increase income (and therefore the tax base), attract employers, attract academically inclined immigrants, etc.

Here’s the catch though: this isn’t the first state wide school bond we’ve had. Indeed, we’ve had several as described by Bill Leonard, there have been three school bond measures issued since 1998. We basically keep borrowing more every time the money from the last one runs out. What does this tell me? These school bonds aren’t the one-time measure a bond should be, but rather an ongoing interest in increased education spending. The voters of California really just want to spend more of their taxes on education.

It’s ridiculous for us to burn through half of our education spending on interest payments when what we really should be doing is either cutting spending from somewhere else or raising taxes to pay for our education goals (or more likely some combination of both).