What about Proposition 99

While Proposition 98 got attention earlier, it is not the only item before California’s voters in June that will consider the future of eminent domain in the Golden State.

Most significantly, an alternative exists to Prop 98 that comes without a concurrent impact for rent control in the Golden State.  Proposition 99 is an alternative.

Both would constrain the use of eminent domain in the state. That follows on the tide of anger among all different groups of people after the Kelo v. City of New London decision. That decision extended the use of eminent domain, traditionally stipulated for public purposes, to include the taking of land for economic development.

What has followed in California certainly builds on the ensuing anger. What is interesting to watch, though, is how the issue of rent control has grafted itself into this debate.

Rent control has a lot of critics with a lot of valid points. Nonetheless, it does matter a great deal to hundreds of thousands of California residents. In fact, it governs the economic terms of life for almost 600,000 Los Angelenos alone.

Proposition 99 also seeks to limit the power of government agencies to seize land in the name of economic development. However, it does not include a rider to simultaneously cease the proliferation of rent control.

Prop 99 doesn’t have the attention, perhaps because it doesn’t have the dollars. Mobile home park owners are among the forces that have contributed to the effort to limit eminent domain. Sam Zell, an owner of Equity Lifestyle Properties (and a few other things), contributed $50,000.

Other big contributors for the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act (as Proposition 98 would be called if ratified) 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.

A Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association press release casts opponents of eminent domain in a bad light — as people willing to make farm owners other small businessmen vulnerable to government greed. Their argument sidesteps one of the most glaring differences — the lack of a rent control provision — and instead focus on the assertion that Prop 99 would not create adequate protections against eminent domain.

Prop 99 has some specific requirements:

• no eminent domain for owner-occupied homes
• only for public work or improvements
• government is seeking to abate a nuisance, an environmental hazard, or protect public safety.