Real Estate Magnate Capitalizing on Eminent Domain Outrage

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


More than a year ago, people and lawmakers across the political spectrum took up arms against eminent domain abuse. The fillip was the Supreme Court ruling that the City of New London could replace a working-class neighborhood with condos, a hotel, and office space related to a Pfizer center.

What alarmed Americans were the evictions of small businesses and working-class neighborhoods for the benefit of corporations and developers. Statehouses rushed to curb the practice. But now the zeitgeist is also being channeled against something else: land-use regulation in general.

Groups backed by Howard Rich, a wealthy New York real estate investor and libertarian activist, have spent about $5 million on initiatives to appear on ballots in four states this November. In California alone, they’ve spent $3.3 million on Proposition 90. If it passes, the state will have to compensate landowners and developers for regulatory actions that diminish the value of their property.

The Sierra Club is against it. So are the editorial boards of 11 newspapers. A land-use lawyer in San Francisco says what backers of Prop 90 really want is “to gut the government’s police power to regulate business, including land use, development, mining, and grazing.”

On the other hand, economist Tim Harford in Slate points out instances when environmental protections backfired. He argues that taxpayers should foot the bill to save nature.

–April Rabkin

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate