Opponents assert Proposition 90 safeguards against eminent domain abuses will decimate California's ability to “preserve and protect” wildlife, open space, the coast, farmland, etc. Then they bring in their lynchpin “proof” of its disastrous consequences – Oregon’s Proposition 37 in 2004, the first such property protection initiative to pass. They point to its “Draconian” effects, and say that even worse consequences face California.

Anti-90 partisans point to over 2,700 claims filed under Measure 37, involving the development of about 143,000 acres, which could require the government to pay $4 billion in compensation. They give examples of landowners trying to convert rural property into large-scale housing developments and even a gravel pit, and governments rolling back property “protections,” to complete the horror story. If all that happened in Oregon since 2004, similar legislation would then surely cause a far more massive disaster in California, foes of Prop. 90 warn.

Unfortunately, the horror stories from Oregon arise from crucial differences between Measure 37 and Prop. 90 (as well as strategic overstatement). Those details, which anti-90 partisans ignore in their misleading attacks, destroy their supposed proof. The most important difference between the two initiatives is that Oregon’s Measure 37 applied retroactively to whenever a property was purchased. California’s Prop. 90 exempts all current regulations and applies only to the future. Under Measure 37, Oregon property owners can sue for compensation or reversal of regulations going back decades. When combined with the fact that Oregon imposed America’s most stringent new property regulations over that time (yes, even more restrictive than in California), the many years of regulatory theft has produced predictably numerous claims. In addition, because of the many changes in land use regulations over a long time period, what were once not incompatible with previous surroundings, but now are, after years of development, “gravel pit next door” horror stories can result in Oregon.

But neither the magnitude of claims nor the horror stories translate to Prop. 90, which only applies to future regulatory changes. Adding to the faulty analogy is Prop. 37’s 2-year window to bring claims for previous takings. That meant all the damages from the past had to be challenged by this year. The resulting huge claims far overstate what claims for new regulatory burdens would cost yearly. Yet those numbers are misleadingly cited as the basis for Prop. 90’s supposed annual costs.

Prop. 90 and its Oregon predecessor also exempt regulations that protect public health and safety or that control nuisances – the traditional, defensible reasons for such regulations . So all valid claims involve government overstepping what is in the general welfare. Further, to the extent California governments act only in the public interest in the future, Prop. 90 would generate no financial claims.

Anti-90 partisans also exaggerate potential burdens by double-counting. They use the billions in Oregon’s compensation claims (further hyped as the cost to taxpayers, not for how much theft would be made right), as if California claims will be proportionally larger. Then they assert rollbacks of property restrictions as an additional burden. However, claims for compensation in Oregon have almost all been settled by reinstating prior development rights, so a much smaller financial burden (as well as administrative cost) has actually been caused. If California did the analogous thing by not imposing abusive new regulations, Prop. 90 would neither impose significant financial costs to taxpayers nor result in any rollbacks of current property “protections.”

Even if one believed that Oregon’s Measure 37 was a disaster (property owners seeking long-delayed restitution would disagree), it implies nothing of the sort about California’s Prop. 90. Any “analysis” omitting the crucial differences is uninformed or willingly misleading, and an unreliable basis for your vote Nov. 7.

Gary M. Galles, Ph.D., is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University and a senior fellow in economic policy at the California-based Pacific Research Institute. He can be contacted at Gary.Galles@pepperdine.edu.

Copyright 2006 The Orange County Register