Ballot battle is all about the money

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/19/8 | John Hill

[SmithL]

Both sides allege tainted funds in duel over Propositions 98, 99.

In the June 3 ballot showdown over governments' power to take private property, both sides agree on one thing: Their opponents rely on tainted money that reveals their true motives.

One side gets much of its money from landlords and mobile home park owners that stand to benefit from Proposition 98's ban on rent control.

The other side opposes Proposition 98 and supports a far less restrictive initiative, Proposition 99. Much of its campaign money comes from local government groups that resist major curbs on their use of eminent domain.

Both sides have made an issue of the other's campaign cash, using it to discredit their stated motives.

"It's pretty clear," Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, one of Proposition 98's sponsors, said of the initiative's opponents. "It's the interests that benefit from being able to take property rights from other people."

Opponents of Proposition 98 counter that the measure's financial base shows it is really about ending rent control, not eminent domain reform.

"Prop. 98 was written by landlords, is paid for by landlords, for the sole financial benefit of landlords," said Janis Hirohama, president of the League of Women Voters of California.

Prop. 99 is more narrow

Proposition 98 would bar state and local governments in California from taking private property to transfer to a private interest, such as redevelopment agencies taking land for a private developer's project.

It would also ban rent control in apartments and mobile home parts. Currently, about a million Californians live in one or the other.

Proposition 99 takes a far narrower approach. It outlaws only the taking of a single-family home, occupied by the owner for at least a year, to hand over to a private interest. Small businesses, farmland and other... private property...

[calcowgirl]

Proposition 99 takes a far narrower approach....

In other words, Prop 99 is limited enough, and has enough loopholes, that government will do whatever the heck they want.

The SacBee really doesn't like property rights, do they?

YES ON PROP 98!