Now also in orange. Recs and comments appreciated there as well.
Today, in the LA Times, Patrick McGreevy has an article about the funders of what will become, unfortunately Prop. 98. A sidebar real quick about the ballot designation of propositions. I've always felt that the initiatives that are particularly noteworthy should have their ballot designations retired. Take 98 for example. When somebody says Prop 98 to you, what do you think of? Education, probably. Well, now you're going to have to start thinking of the the Hidden Agendas Scheme as well, so for the next 4+ months, you're going to have to remember No on 98/Yes on 99. Put them together, remember them both. It's vitally important that, just for these few months, we hear, we know, and we repeat the phrase: "This is the WRONG Prop 98!"
So, back to the LA Times story. Basically, the fact that this is about rent control, pure and simple, is made plainly clear by the sources of funding: Apartment and mobile home owners. And coincidentally, Sam Zell.
In the spring, voters will decide whose interests prevail. More than 100 owners and operators of apartment buildings and mobile home parks spent nearly $2 million to put an initiative on the June 3 ballot to phase out California's rent control laws. About 1.2 million people statewide are covered by such laws.
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Big financial backers of the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act include the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which gave $100,000 to the effort and lent the campaign $200,000; the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Issues PAC, which contributed $150,000; and the Apartment Owners Assn. Political Action Committee, which put in $100,000.
Among the donations is $50,000 from Equity Lifestyle Properties Inc., which owns 27 mobile home parks in California, and many more in other states. Equity Lifestyle's chairman is Sam Zell, chairman of Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times.(LA Times 1.29.08)
Well, today the good folks who want to "reform eminent domain" (notice the quotation marks there) have turned in their signatures to the Secretary of State. This little shadily crafted hidden agenda masquerading as a eminent domain reform was attacked from all sides. But one quote stood out to me, from Nan Brasmer, president of the California Alliance for Retired Americans:
Wealthy apartment and mobile home park owners spent close to $2 million to qualify their deceptive rent control rollback proposition for the June 2008 ballot. The landlords are going to try to trick voters into believing their measure is about eminent domain. But they won't be successful. We will wage an aggressive campaign to educate voters that this measure is nothing more than a greedy scheme by landlords to eliminate rent control so they can make millions of dollars off the backs of seniors, veterans, working moms and other Californians.
Something came up on Calitics a few days ago about why language to abolish rent control was included in the Hidden Agendas measure. It seems pretty clear the rent control language is in there to help raise money from apartment owners.
Now, rent control is a fairly popular concept. I'm not saying its universally popular, but, in many of these safe-Democratic seats held by many of the leaders in the Assembly and Senate Caucus, rent control is viewed as a positive. And leaders who take a strong pro-rent control position are generally well-received. You don't really need to look much further than the very well-attended event last Wednesday to see that there's quite a bit of support in San Francisco. A couple of weeks earlier a similar rally was held in Los Angeles and I'm sure that same rally could have been held in several other cities across the state with equally strong attendance.
Unfortunately, the Legislature hasn't been too kind to tenants in the last few years. Sure, it could be worse, but major pieces of pro-tenant legislation have been few and far between. That is the case for a variety of reasons, but there has been no real incentive for legislators to touch rent control for a while.
But, if the Howard Jarvis/Howie Rich eminent domain "reform" package makes it to the ballot, rent control will be a major theme of the race. And once that disastrous package goes down in flames, housing activists can work on using that informal poll on the popularity of rent control as a means to pursue more tenant protections.
So, as a little suggestion, I refer you to the Costa-Hawkins Act. More over the flip...
Amendment V. "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
In 1791 the United States Congress, comprised of property owners, passed the above as part of the Bill of Rights, designed to strictly limit the powers of the new federal government. Over the years this has sufficed for most as a balance between individual property rights and the need to subordinate those rights, on occasion, to the public good. Combined with the Fourteenth Amendment this provision ensures that any taking of property will be compensated fairly.
However, in the 200+ years that have elapsed, a more extreme view has emerged. To believe that the Constitution is an insufficient guarantee is to take a radical view of property rights. It assumes that not only does one have a right to own property, but to derive the maximum amount of income possible from that property no matter what method is used to attain it. That extremist view was not held by those who authored the Constitution, or by courts that have for 200 years been interpreting that Constitution, or by those who have been making law under that Constitution.
And if one has that extremist view of property rights - that private ownership of property is not or should not be subject to any controls or limits of regulations - THEN you will see eminent domain in the same category as rent control, as environmental laws, etc.
Here in California this view is promoted by, among others, the Howard Jarvis Association. And that's why they use eminent domain as a wedge to push unpopular and unfair ideas like ending rent control - not just because they enjoy Trojan Horses (though they surely do) but also because it fits their extremist logic.
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Today, in the LA Times,