The Property Rights Revolt
Poll: Oregonians Regret Passing Measure 37
By Dan Richardson, 10-26-06
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We Oregonians, hoping to fend off intrusive government, passed Measure 37 two years ago by a muscular majority — but we wouldn’t if the election were re-voted today.
That’s the upshot of a recent poll of 405 Oregon voters.
Voters would oppose Measure 37 today by 2-to-1, according to the poll by the lefty statistics-mongers at Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner. The turnaround in public perception is stunning; or, it would be if you haven’t been reading about the spawn of Measure 37. See, it’s hard to miss the point when you hear things like one Oregon farmer saying of a neighbor’s mega-development, “This is not what I voted for.”
The poll, showing what the pollsters called “buyer’s remorse,” comes out this week just days before voters around the West will cast ballots on similar property rights initiatives.
Measure 37, of course, is Oregon’s law that requires local governments to either pay property owners who have been kept from developing their land by land use restrictions, or else waive the restrictions altogether.
The theory is called “regulatory takings.” It’s hot stuff in Libertarian circles; packing an emotional punch, it passed easily in Oregon and has since made a hash of the state’s 30-year-old anti-sprawl rules. More than 2,200 Oregonians have filed Measure 37 development claims to date. A vast majority — something like 85 percent — of the claims are property owners wanting to divide their land with the intention of building multiple dwellings, mostly on land currently zoned for farms or forestry.
In November 2004, Oregon voters passed M-37 by 61-39 percent. According to the Greenberg poll — commissioned by the Izaak Walton League of America, and Defenders of Wildlife — voters would reject the measure today. Probably. The poll identified among total voters that 29 percent would vote yes, 48 percent no, and 21 percent are now undecided.
“In sum, this poll has found that Oregon voters have deep regrets over Measure 37 and if they could do it all over again, they would vote no and reject this initiative,” wrote the pollsters in their memo.
So the number of people opposed to M-37 has increased; the supporters have decreased dramatically, by more than half; but most of them are now simply undecided. So who knows? Another property rights campaign showing a little old lady crushed by the machinery of the liberal, central-planning bureaucrats — the same sort of heart-tugging spin seen in other states’ initiatives this fall — could swing those undecideds back into the “Hell, yeah!” category.
Which means, Oregonians would be split pretty evenly down the middle.
Still, that’s a change from the 61 percent majority vote that M-37 supporters have so-often touted.
Even before the entire impact of Measure 37 has yet to be seen, or the precise implications hammered out in court, property rights activists began hawking the “takings” idea around the West. Funded by the now-infamous New Yorker real estate developer Howie Rich, a cabal of Libertarian activists have put similar, or even more radical, “takings” initiatives on the ballot in Arizona (Proposition 207), California (Prop. 90), Idaho (Prop. 2), Montana (I-154), Nevada (“PISTOL”), and Washington state (I-933).
Measure 37 was a bad idea, a front for developers, and the “pay-or-waive” concept that animated it is both emotionally appealing and deeply flawed. And now, a majority of Oregonians seem to realize that.
I wonder if people in other states will, too, or if they'll be suckers like we were.
(You can read the complete poll memo, as a .pdf document, here.)
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Comments
--Steven B
Then they can hop on the bus to Regret, just like the Oregonians. Go figure.
Better yet, why don't all the anti-M37 central planning zealots - the governor, 1000 Friends of Collectivism, the Sierra Club, the Green Party, the Blue fascists, the Red commies -- all get together and put a "Repeal Measure 37" question on the next general election ballot? Answer: Because this poll is a bunch of BS, and if given a chance, a majority of Oregonians will vote for freedom the same way they did last time around, if not in an even more decisive fashion. And those like the sponsors of the poll, who in principle ideologically oppose both limiting the power of government and protecting the rights of individuals against state aggression, are fully aware of that reality. Their only recourse then is to make up lies and hope socialism-friendly reporters will be foolish enough to believe them.
Not only is this pathetic push poll at odds with two previous Oregon elections, but other opinion polls conducted since the 2004 general election by Portland State University and the Portland metropolitan regional government have shown that an overwhelming majority of citizens in both rural and urban areas in Oregon believe the concept of "property rights" to be of more transcendent value than contrived slogans like "the common good."
Leave the poll results out of the discussion for a moment. (And, ahem, it was this "socialism-friendly reporter" who bothered to mention in his post how small the polling sample was, the enviro groups who commissioned it, and the political inclinations of the polling group. Go figure.)
The question isn't yes or no to property rights. The question is, how do we balance those? I'm a conservative; I believe in the balancing of order and liberty — neither central planning nor frontier mentality.
Or, to put a finer point on it: Whose property rights are more important, mine or my neighbor's?
Measure 37's answer: Whoever develops his property first, and the heck with everyone else. To me, that's tilting the balance too far, no matter what Ayn Rand might have thought.
Dan
Not all development regulations are non-health and non-safety related, and I never "assumed" they were. Quite the contrary. What I and the voters of M37 are concerned about is how government is quick to "take" property rights that have nothing at all to do with health and safety without compensation. An example being scenic protection. Just because someone likes the view across your property should not be cause and justification for a majority of the electorate or an abusive legislature or a local government to enact restrictions to protect that view through an action of their police power. A power that can be exercised without requiring any compensation at all. That is the issue, Shannon, and I do get a bit "exercised" when you and yours simply refuse to acknowledge or recognize it. Just because a law is passed doesn't necessarily make it right. M37 is a correction to a wrong, nothing more.
--Steven B
Measure 37 does not provide carte blanche approval to harm your neighbors and you know it. It stops your neighbors from ganging up on you and looting using the police power of their Friends. You keep painting the picture with the wrong colors so it will appear to be something it isn't. I don't think that is very fair discourse.
--Steven B.
True, Steven. That's why I've never said so.
Listen one more time: Yes, I think M-37 is bad law. It's deceptively development-oriented, wrapped in gauzy property rights rhetoric. It makes no provision for neighbors' lost property values or quality of life; and, the "pay-or-waive" idea does nothing to create a reasonable compensation mechanism; and, worse, M-37 makes no distinction between the mom-and-pops of the state who want only to build a retirement home, and the guys who will happily pave over a valley for 800-unit condo developments.
To most reasonable people, those are serious flaws.
They're also things that the supporters and Randians never address.
I have written -- and you know this, Steven -- that the law, while flawed, has provided a needed energy to land use reform in Oregon. It has spurred people (well, some people) to get serious with the "Big Look" and a re-balancing of rights. Rights are not absolutes (I've written that, too, but...nevermind). Competing rights need to be weighed and deliberated from time to time. Oregon's legislators should have done so sooner.
Funny. We've run several postings on the Big Look here, but those don't tend to draw comment from property rights fundamentalists. (Not you, S., not you.) Maybe they can't figure out whom to call fascist.
- Dan
You keep mentioning how M37 enables the "paving over" of resource land, etc. I don't think that any legislative body can approve any development that has not been determined to be in the "public interest" as defined by those elected to define it. So I am very skeptical about your claim that M37 will allow this type of scenario. It is good scare-mongering, to be sure. But I am not convinced it will actually happen. Even regulation roll-backs prior to land use regulations being enacted will still not exempt all the health and safety regulations from being enforced, which will require an application process, which will kick in a public interest determination before an approval is granted. There is opportunity for neighbors to get involved in that process (from start to finish including legal actions if necessary).
The problem with the Big-Look is that it was made largely irrelevant from the get-go by the Governor when he set the absurd time-table for it to deliver its recommendations--and that is will all they will be, recommendations. I think some relevancy might enter into the picture with a new governor, but now that the Oregonian has endorsed Saxton, I'm not so sure his election will result in much change in that regard (head shaking).
--Steven B
If you question the validity and/or the source, so to speak, of most polls why not first ask yourself how many unsolicited phone calls from unidentified callers you answer and ~ if you do answer any such phone calls ~ just how much you are willing to share with any unconfirmed/unidentified person on the other end of that phone line? If you participate in any of those phone-games people play you are certainly a prime candidate for having your identity stolen somewhere between midnight and daybreak!
How a question is asked and who asked it can always determine the nature and the interpretation of any answer given.
Yet we wish to have every aspect of our lives influenced by "polls"?
Maybe YOU ~ definitely NOT me!!!
I do have to agree with Steven B., Dan, when he states that this is definitely an Opinion piece ~ not arms-length fact reporting.
But as far as I'm concerned there is not one thing the matter with that since it does not appear to me that you tried at all to camouflage that fact and we are all ~ so far! ~ perfectly within our "rights" in this Great Nation to form our own opinions and take action accordingly.
However, it is my *opinion* that when you label a quest for the protection of private property rights for ALL of us as "... a front for developers ..." you've totally missed the impact and the importance of this issue in Oregon and elsewhere to every individual private property owner within the USA.
You are not alone, of course, in wishing to cop that plea as an excuse for NIMBYism.
If and when the day ever arrives when those who wish to control private property are willing to purchase what property it is they wish to control ~ to put their own money, mouth and life on the line to own that property without wanting all of us to join hands in a circle and "take" from one to "give" to another ~ then and ONLY then will these scores be settled in a fair and equitable basis.
This discussion and many others like it would not be either needed nor taking place these days if that were true.
"I've got mine so now I'll TAKE yours" is the substance of it all.
And that is a very SAD state of affairs me-thinks.
Be careful what you wish for ... it may fly right back-at-ya.
... or so it seems to me.
First, you and Steven are correct that my entry is not "not arms-length fact reporting." I never said so. I've been a straight news reporter writing arm's-length articles before, and they have their place. On the blog, however, I take some slack and opinionate sometimes. That doesn't mean the facts are not there; they are.I do strive to be fair and thorough and factual. Just not always cold-fish neutral.
Perhaps I could better the entries, though. "News." "Opinion." I could do that, if it would be useful to you and other readers — what do you think?
My second point. You, and Steven and others, tend to argue from principle. That's well and good. But I believe — I think we adults have to understand — that principles must be tempered by reality. That's why I write about balance.
Point 2-B: I admit to specifically linking property rights measures with development not JUST because I have a NIMBY streak but because, well, that's that they're all about. If the struggle were simply to defend a person's right to sit out on their porch at night, or build a shed in their backyard, or play the drums in their garage, or paint their house a weird color, that would be one thing. But that's not what M-37 and its spin-offs are about. There's only one use that the vast majority (85 percent?) mean when they support these things — build, build, build.
Building things is fine. Great! I'm all for it — within balance and rules that don't allow building things to destroy existing places willy-nilly. That's why I keep flogging the idea of scalability, treating small landowners and larger ones differently.
Property rights fundamentalists sneer at that idea, pretending that I mean preserving someone's view. Maybe. But some places have character; they have a common feel; and those things — view, maybe, or quietude, or whatever — are valuable. Character counts for places, just like it does for people.
That's not an absolute argument against building a new house in a rural area, but it's the sort of intangible idea, the need for balance, that property rights folks must take into account. Balance, you see, is a principle, too.
But the bureaucrats! The government running are lives! No — I'm opposed to that. Balance doesn't mean turning ourselves over to Big Brother. Quite the opposite. Rather, balance means keeping both Big Brother and Big Developer at arm's length, and not cuddling up to either of them.
If you don't believe that character counts for a place, than all the arguments are just naked justifications for development. For the quick buck, and the heck with the neighbors. And if THAT's the case, then a person's version of property rights doesn't mean a damn. It's just gussied-up talk.
Let me put it another way. I recall, growing up, being confused about Civil War history. I tried mightily to understand the Southern case; and, for a while, was swayed by the alleged justice of the state's rights agument. By the idea that state's rights were vital to their way of life and their culture. But, in reality, all that state's rights talk (then), all the fond recall of Southern culture, was a shell argument for slavery. The right the states of the South fought for was, simply, slavery.
I don't mean to lible anyone, but the analogy strikes me as apt. Property rights, without balance and realism and care for the rights of neighbors, is just a shell argument for development.
That's probably just my NIMBY self talking, though. I mean, I do have a backyard, and I'd be mighty upset if someone built a tuba factory on the other side of my fence.
Dan
We saw some of this problem on North fork between Cody and Yellowstone. As anyone who drives that way knows there are houses all of the way from Cody to the forest boundry, and some in the forest for that matter. One rancher had his land for sale for several years and no buyers until a developer bought it, then the fireworks started.
Other homeowners could have bought it at any time, but they seemed to feel that it was the responsibility of the rancher to maintain it for their view at no cost to them. Lots of hard feelings, lost time, and money and lawsuits later, I think the developer won.
Thanks for your additional comments ~ which I *always* do enjoy reading, for the record! And if you thought my comments were "chastising" then I am just glad you added that word "gently" since it is not my goal nor my desire to "chastise" anyone. I do enjoy your opinions shared (and the opinions of all other persons) and seek only to share my own ~ which, to me, is the only way we can hope to honestly communicate as long as it is all done without anger and meanness. To disagree is to be human, is it not? And if we do not LISTEN or understand the reasons and thoughts of other people we can not hope to advance, perfect, reconsider, or reconfirm our own opinions ... or so it seems to me.
As far as I am personally concerned, I see no need whatsoever for you to try to separately label "News" vs. "Opinion" until or unless you degenerate into the habit of trying to pass-off "opinions" as "news" which I have never seen/read you do!!! And I have also never seen/read your comments as being so set in concrete that you are not at least willing to try that listening-to-other-opinions which I think is so vital for each and every one of us. So THAT is my own "opinion" on all that stuff ~ since you asked! ;-)
Since you have chosen (thank you!) to expand on your own feelings and positions regarding this serious subject, perhaps you will now indulge a few of my own which will also serve to disclaim some of the comments/statements you have made in this posting.
If you really do, in fact, ".. think we adults have to understand — that principles must be tempered by reality" then you must expand your understanding of what that reality really IS. Unless you do you will never reach your goal for that "balance" you seek, " — within balance and rules that don't allow building things to destroy existing places willy-nilly." Before you step to the pulpit with that rhetoric you must first declare and acknowledge just how long you have personally been a resident within the New West and explain to me where you would be living had not those who were here before YOU engaged in "building things to destroy existing places willy-nilly".
I would be willing to bet you donuts for dollars (I get the donuts-side since I can come up with more of those than the dollars!) that you are now living on MY "existing place" that has been drastically changed by the influx of the many *transplants* into MY West ~ those same persons ~ like yourself? ~ who now would like to sterilize my land to prohibit any profit I might recover from a lifetime of hard work spent accumulating my equity in it. Is it so very hard to understand that within MY West some places HAD character with an individual AND a common feel; and those things — view, maybe, or quietude, or whatever — WERE valuable before these *transplants* now-wishing-to-control MY land arrived? Character counts for MY place just like it does for MY family ... and I am here to guarantee you that the "Public" who now wishes to control the future of MY land "for the Public Good" was not so "GOOD" about showing up when the payments came due or the fence needed to be fixed or the hay bill landed on my desk.
Not sure how you could think that those of us who own the land could not appreciate the character or the value of it. We did not just languish around at Starbucks trying to decide what we wanted to do with something someone else accumulated via the sweat on their brow and the dust on the seat of their britches and we did not ever take the "position" that since "we had ours" (at whatever cost/expense) that YOU should not be able to "have yours". Had we done so we would not have to be contending with this lack of understanding and unwarranted desire to control what we own that you are now suggesting!!!
The Ted-Turners-of-the-world aside (since few of us land owners can match that type of disposable income), our land IS our bank account and, if purchased with knowledge and consideration of all factors involved with or about it, we had the reasonable expectation of being able to sell our land at a profit to individuals or to developers who would then create YOUR place within the West. Should I divert to a more personal note (which should only be considered a single example, though shared by many other land owners today), 32 years ago I accepted the challenge of purchasing a large hunk of land within the West that was then zoned for a primary permitted use of houses on every 5 acres of it. My personal *reasonable* expectation from that purchase-point forward was that at any time I chose to use my land for homes/housing I should be able to do just that.
Now, since I own one of the last "undeveloped" parcels of size because I have freely chosen SO FAR not to use it for that purpose you wish to penalize me for NOT doing so at an earlier date!!! Now that "you have yours" you want to TAKE mine and the profit potential I have had the *reasonable* right to expect for the last 32 years ~ because you have NOW decided to "...believe that character counts for a place" and that NOW "..all the (other) arguments are just naked justifications for development"?
How very convenient FOR YOU is this new-found desire to protect and preserve?
Can you not see even JUST A TOUCH of irony in that, Dan?
Now, let me walk you down another path regarding this "protect and preserve" attitude so many seem to harbor ~ as long as it is MY land that gets "protected and preserved", not YOURS! Perhaps I can just give you a *short* list of what The Public (and their Servants) have done to encourage me to eternally "protect and preserve" my land for The Public Good:
1. For 32 years The Public has trespassed on my land and in all those 32 years ONLY ONE member of The Public has said "I'm sorry" and left my land when asked if they realized they were trespassing on private property and would they please leave. The rest of The Public calls me every name in the book (most with language that can not be published here) and I am forced to "protect and preserve" my private property by utilizing law enforcement officers and prosecutors in the DA's office. "Would you please" does not work and if I do not file charges against them they return the next day with all their buddies to tramp and molest and destroy to an even greater extent.
2. For 32 years I have fed and watered livestock owned by The Public and repaired fences and property damaged by them at my own expense without even ONE dime being tendered for any of it by The Public. Not ONE time in 32 years has The Public offered to do the same for my livestock. And when my livestock has been killed by The Public's more vicious livestock, in spite of what the law supposedly requires of The Public's Division of Wildlife "servants", I must hire an attorney and sue that agency in an attempt to MAKE them do as the law requires, which is to pay me for my dead beasts. Perhaps you place more value on a mountain lion than you do on an innocent new-born foal. I do not. My new-born foal would have lived to do nothing more than bring joy to YOU. I do not kill what does not kill, be that ownership held by The Public or by me.
3. For 32 years I have provided a magnificent view for The Public ~ at NO expense TO The Public. Now, since I was stupid enough to share this delight ~ at MY expense ~ with The Public that same Public thinks they should have license to claim it and TAKE it for their own. Could we file that under the heading of "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"?
When you claim, Dan, that land owners are concerned about property rights "For the quick buck, and the heck with the neighbors. And if THAT's the case, then a person's version of property rights doesn't mean a damn. It's just gussied-up talk." I can only counter that YES ~ when I made a 32-year commitment to make the payments and pay the bills to purchase my land I did so for the character and love of the land AND I ALSO DID SO FOR THE INVESTMENT POTENTIAL OF IT; and, YES ~ "to heck with the neighbors" is definitely on my mind as I watch and listen to their "I've got mine" so now "I'll TAKE yours" intents and goals for MY land.
If you actually believe that my "version of property rights doesn't mean a damn" and/or it is nothing more than "gussied-up talk ... just a shell argument for development" then I must tell you that YOU ARE WRONG!!! But since we do live in this Great Nation you do have the "RIGHT" to be wrong!!!
Ain't that GRAND??!!!
I've already been-there/done-that when it comes to "..car(ing) for the rights of neighbors".
I defended their rights to come into the West and I defended their rights to carve up whatever amount of land was offered to them so they would have a place to live within the West I loved for a lifetime before they arrived, to sink their own roots into what used to be my "open space".
With that in mind, I will now fight to the death to protect my own private property rights as I will also continue to do all that I can to try to explain to The Public why those private property rights have been so ultimately important to each and every one of them during their lifetime and will be even more important during the lifetimes of their children and grandchildren.
AND, dear Dan ... should you choose to put YOUR backyard on the other side of MY fence I will fight you, too, for the right to build that tuba factory on MY land!!! A tuba IS a beautiful instrument, you know!!!
Before we choose to draw a line
Within the dirt to give a sign
To all who traffic, evermore,
Remember RISKS that are in store.
Prepare a tale that can be told
To those we do not yet behold;
To those who will not have our "rights",
Will never know the battles, fights,
Of those who risked a limb or life
For all we reap from all their strife.
Were memories of what went before
Erased within our every shore
They would be victims of abuse
With risk of no land left for use.
The Public owns within the West
So many acres of the best
For each to use and then admire;
There is no "need" for this quagmire.
I've shared my moccasins with you
So Walk That Mile! ~ while you do
Remember "ALL" should stop to think
About which beer they want to drink.
"Developers" don't own the land
Until a buyer takes a stand
Outside that fence and needs a home
Where all that livestock used to roam.
Food for thought while you spit and whittle on YOUR front porch?
Rose Mary
I'll make these initial observations:
1. People -- you, I, probably others -- seem to see "property rights" through the lens of their own experiences. Yours is having been for a long time in one place, subject to trespass and expense, apparently on a ranch at the edge of some town. Mine is having returned to my hometown after some years of living around the country; growing up and now living in a traditional residental neighborhood, where there's not much in the way of mountain lions or mountain bikers, but what happens next door 50 or 100 feet away makes a real impact. When my neighbor burns his pile of leaves, I get the smoke. I suspect you don't.
2. Your own experience sort of makes my ultimate point — that property rights don't exist in a vacuum, but are affected by facts on the ground. That's what I mean by tempering one's ideas with reality: Taking into account experiences and circumstances, even those that conflict with one's ideas and inclinations.
No rights are absolute. Not the right to life or free speech — or property rights. Don't let get worked up, any of us, into binary thinking. The debate isn't property rights-vs-public use; it's, much latitude to give to each.
3. Finally, don't miss what I've written (and written, and written), that part of tempering the debate with reality is taking things into account like how long a person has owned property, where and what that property is, and, the proposed changes. Tie invested in a place counts. Your 32 years should give you more say than someone's 32 days. Nothing radical, I think. Just that long-time, small property owners should be given more leeway than professional developers.
Anyway, thanks for the substantive reply. And, as always, the poetry. Have you published some?
Dan
PS: Lifelong Westerner — at heart, even when I sojourned elsewhere for a time.
This was not a push-poll. The questions were long and the sample size small.
Hope this helps contextualize what's going on here. The context (despite the curious argument that it must be wrong because, gosh, people voted for it) is that voters regret their vote. It's not hard. Really. The cure is worse than the illness.
Regards,
" I have a good one for you ...one of the "Polls" called here trying to find out if I would be voting for (name deleted), who is a Democrat that is running for Congress here. I said I am voting Republican, is he Republican? Now I know that he isn't ... so I am in the cheap entertainment mode again. The caller goes silent for a couple of seconds and says, "I don't know .... I will put you down as undecided then." I now know how they get the polls to be the way they want them to be!!!!"
Why anyone allows ANY poll to tell 'em what to think or do is beyond my comprehension.
On the other hand, look on the bright side: just think how many people would be unemployed if they didn't exist!!!
Laugh and the world laughs with you ~ cry and you sure can go through one helluva lot of Kleenex in a very short period of time.
Interesting input, Shawn.
Any chance we could get you to elaborate on that "... NOT for the right of Grandma to develop the family farm into condos and then move to Florida and retire"? ... maybe explain to us why Grandma should NOT have the right to develop the family farm into condos and then move to Florida and retire?
Just what is it you think that Grandma ought to have the right to do with her land after she's spent the last million years paying for it and taking care of it year after year after year?
Instead of the state going in and condemning her property and giving her pennies on the dollar for it would you suggest she just sign it all over to them ... or sign it over to ... ?????? ... and waste away her final days in a state-supported old age home?
That'd fix the old broad for wasting her years away providing "the public" with their free "open space" and "scenic views" at no cost to anyone but her!!!
Damned old Grandma ... paybacks are paybacks and those paybacks for such stupidity can't be tooooooo high ... can they???
Oh yeah, Shawn ... just one more question: whose Grandma's family farm are YOU living on these days?
They make it as hard as possible for Grandma to make a living, or turn her land over to her kids to make a living, but they feel that she has no right to any benefit from it by selling.