The Return of Prop 90!

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Well, it looks like it's going to happen. The Right wingers aren't ones to give up just because they got rebuffed once.  They're at it again, and, if you believe them, they've got the signatures to get on the ballot:

Today, Californians for Property Rights Protection announced that the campaign has collected well over 700,000 signatures needed to qualify the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act for the June 2008 ballot. In order to qualify the eminent domain reform ballot measure, supporters must collect 694,354 valid signatures by November 26, 2007. The campaign is on track to submit more than 1 million signatures before this deadline. Link here

More on this proposition over the flip and why this is, yet again, a trojan horse.
You see, the Howard Jarvis folks don't really care all that much about eminent domain, because it doesn't really affect that many of their kind of people, or truthfully, any kind of people. But, it sounds really bad, and it polls well for them.  So, they use it as a trojan horse. That's what they did with Prop 90, and that's what they are doing this time.  This time, it is rent control that's on their mind. I think it would also eliminate many of the "below market rate ownership" programs in San Francisco and across the state.

Why rent control? Hell's if I know, but it's what they are going after. They draw some tangential link by making some right to do whatever you damn well please with your property.  So, here's some snippets. Read the whole thing here.

Section 19 of Article I of the California Constitution is amended to read:

SEC. 19(a) Private property may be taken or damaged only for a stated public use and when just compensation, ascertained by a jury unless waived, has first been paid to, or into court for, the owner. The Legislature may provide for possession by the condemnor following commencement of eminent domain proceedings upon deposit in court and prompt release to the owner of money determined by the court to be the probable amount of just compensation. Private property may not be taken or damaged for private use.

(b) For purposes of this section:

(1) "Taken" includes transferring the ownership, occupancy, or use of property from a private owner to a public agency or to any person or entity other than a public agency, or limiting the price a private owner may charge another person to purchase, occupy or use his or her real property.