Bad eminent domain measure fails; real thing passes

Something just downright swell happened in California yesterday.

The Golden State had an election with 2 referendums on the ballot: propositions 98 and 99. Both offered protection against eminent domain abuse. Prop 98 would have gone further in that regard, but this was only a cover for the initiative's real, more unfortunate goal: The measure would have also barred cities from having rent control.

Rent control has been a life-saver for many Californians. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of people simply couldn't afford to lose rent control. But the eminent domain issue was being exploited to accomplish the goal of abolishing cities' limits on rents.

If both referendums won a majority of the vote, Prop 99 would have canceled out Prop 98. But in yesterday's vote, only Prop 99 got a majority. And it wasn't even close: The frightening Prop 98 (with its rent control ban) lost 61% to 39%, while Prop 99 (which doesn't ban rent control) won 62% to 38%.

The right-wing media machine churned out countless editorials bashing Prop 99 as a tool of corrupt city governments, while praising Prop 98. They cried that rent control is as much of a "taking" as eminent domain abuse is. These screeds were intentionally misleading. Proposition 99 does more to curtail eminent domain abuse than current policy does, without gutting tenant protections - so if you had to pick one of the two, Prop 99 is more of the real deal.

Should there be broader protections against eminent domain than Prop 99? You're damn right there should be! But just not at the expense of tenants who need rent control to make ends meet.