Initiative 933 writers deliberately wrote Initiative 933 to be so sweeping that it doesn’t just include real property (land and permanent buildings on it) but also “personal property” (cows and other animals, trucks, boats, stocks, businesses, trademarks etc.)
As stated in today’s Seattle Times, the Farm Bureau’s spokesman Dan “Wood has said that personal property was included in I-933 to guard against attempts to circumvent the initiative’s intent.”
Unfortunately this opens up a whole new potential set of lawsuits that our elected officials will have to contend with and we, the taxpayers, will have to pay for.
In a critical analysis released yesterday Seattle Attorney Hugh Spitzer points out that this completely expands the initiative into a whole new area of law that affects many other regulations not specifically related to real property where the “pay or waive” scheme would apply.
Spitzer’s analysis says :
Claims for public compensation would likely include demands for payments as a result of:
– Regulations governing the insurance, securities and health care industries; Regulations governing professions (such as plumbing, cosmetology, and physical therapy);
– Rules controlling who is qualified to carry out other tasks that require specialized training and experience, such as installing fire sprinkler systems or operating sex offender treatment facilities; and
– Regulations governing wild and domestic animals, livestock, food crops,fertilizers, pesticides, drugs and motor vehicles
Now it would not just be developer interests that win big with I-933 but all other types of interests that oppose government regulation of any kind. Maybe that’s why out of state multi-millionaire developer Howard Rich’s Americans for Limited Government gave $260,000 to the Farm Bureau to help buy signatures to put I-933 on the November ballot.
One has to wonder what other hidden agendas have been tucked away in I-933 by those that hate government of any kind. I-933 is a conservative lawyer’s dream.
The technicalities of I-933, and its intended and unintended consequences, point out the risk the public takes in approving complex legislation sponsored by narrow political interests that are trying to avoid the public scrutiny and vetting of consequences of the proposed legislation by ignoring the usual legislative process of hearings and debates.
As we noted in a previous blog this is intentional:
“…a new taped interview of Howard Rich by High County News talking about how initiatives bypassing the legislature is a good thing and how it will have a “very far reaching” impact on future regulatory actions. Rich is the Chair of Americans for Limited Government, on the Board of the CATO Institute and a libertarian free market person who was behind the term limits movement.
Opponents to Initiative 933 are running an aggressive campaign to alert the public to the dangers of Initiative 933. For more information go to Noon933.
