Bills Aimed at Reining in Government Power Over Property Owners Still Haven’t Gotten a Hearing

Attorney General Rob McKenna

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, Feb. 1.—Whether it’s a matter of hard lobbying by city and county organizations or plain-old bare-knuckle politics, a pair of proposals from Attorney General Rob McKenna to rein in government power over property owners appear to be going nowhere in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

            The measures would forbid city and county governments to use their condemnation powers to take private property and resell it to developers for economic development purposes. The most political of the bills advocated by McKenna this year, the measures are supported not just by property rights organizations but also by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

            Yet with a deadline fast approaching for committees to pass bills newly filed this session, none of the measures has even gotten a hearing.

            The reason may be that McKenna is widely seen as a leading Republican candidate for governor in 2012. Or that city and county lobbying organizations are putting up a fight. Or that foundations weren’t laid and traditional courtesies were not observed. Or any of a number of reasons that have led lawmakers to speculate about the peculiar motivations and conflicts of their colleagues.

            But the upshot is that the bills seem to have stalled, and one of the oddest coalitions ever formed in Washington politics doesn’t seem to have swayed the committee chairmen who play the gatekeeper role in the Legislature.

            “These bills are very significant and they should at least be heard,” McKenna said. “If they think these bills are wrong, they should get in front of the TV cameras and say why. They shouldn’t do it from the shadows.”

            Majority Leader Concerned

            Property rights normally are seen as a conservative issue, and McKenna’s bills are supported by conservative Republicans as well as right-leaning groups like the Washington State Farm Bureau, the Washington Policy Center and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. But the measures enjoy much broader support in the Legislature, with sponsors that include Sen. Rosa Franklin, D-Tacoma, one of the Legislature’s leading liberals, and House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam.

            Kessler said House leaders have taken an interest in the issue and are asking Rep. Jamie Pedersen, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to schedule a last-minute hearing and vote on House Bill 2425, which would prohibit local governments from using eminent domain proceedings for economic development. A second measure, House Bill 2423, which would amend the state’s Community Renewal Act, already has died in the House Local Government Committee.

            “Several of us at the leadership table want to work on this because of the way people are being treated,” she said.

            Current law allows local government agencies to take “blighted” property and resell it to private developers. But Kessler said a landmark case in Connecticut in 2005 called attention to the potential for government abuse: In that case, the city of New London forced property owners to sell their homes for a plant that was never developed, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the city’s right to do it – and to keep the property. The case prompted 43 states to pass laws limiting government excess; in Washington, Kessler said numerous similar cases surrounding Seattle’s failed monorail project have demonstrated the problem exists here as well.

            “Those people lost their houses for nothing,” she said. What’s worse, she said –now they can’t get them back.

             Kessler said House leaders won’t force the issue by removing the bills from committee and advancing them to the floor. They don’t feel comfortable going that far. But “a little push” is a different matter.

            There isn’t much time left, though. House policy committees face a deadline on Tuesday.

            Kessler said part of the reason for the trouble is a concerted lobbying effort on the part of the city and county associations. But McKenna’s potential candidacy also may be a factor in the reluctance to take up the issue.

            Call Came Too Late

            It’s not that at all, said Rep. Geoff Simpson, D-Covington, chairman of the House Local Government Committee, where the bill amending the Community Renewal Act died quietly on Thursday, the last hearing date before the cutoff. The problem is that McKenna’s staff didn’t call before the session to make a pitch for the bill.

            “McKenna’s staff fell down on the job,” he said.

            Tim Ford, McKenna’s legislative liaison, called the day after the session started to set up a time to discuss the bill, and Simpson’s staff got him in a week later. At that point, Simpson told him it was already too late – the schedule was full.

            For his part, Ford noted that the bill was filed last year as well, but last year it was sent to the House Judiciary Committee. The assignment to Simpson’s committee on the first day of the session came as a surprise.

            That’s silly, Simpson said. “When you’re changing the powers of local government, you have to think it might be possible that it would go to the local government committee.”

            Simpson said he hasn’t heard a thing about the measure from the city and county lobbying organizations. It’s just that an issue like that one is too large to be dealt with at a last-minute hearing. “It’s not easy to dig into a substantive issue in 12 minutes,” he said. “If he had contacted me and explained to me why it was necessary, there is a very good chance we would have held a hearing, even if the cities were against it.”

            Critics note that the local government committee took action on bills introduced after Ford met with Simpson, and that Simpson’s district contains the city of Auburn, where a stalled urban-renewal project has become a poster-child for eminent domain opponents.

            Senate Chair Not Convinced

            Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, said he hasn’t decided whether to let Senate Bill 6200 advance in his Senate Judiciary Committee. That’s the Senate version of the bill barring eminent domain for economic development. Senate deadlines give Kline’s committee until the end of the week.

Kline said he participated in McKenna’s eminent domain task force, but thought the deck was stacked toward property rights advocates. “I told him so, too,” he said.

He said he has been lobbied by local government officials, and he thinks they have a point. City-sponsored economic development efforts can play a role in creating jobs, beautifying cities and creating public places, he said. “This is a subject on which people can be aroused to demand political action,” he said. “I don’t think this an opportunity for passion, but for a thoughtful, very considered view, and I’m not going to be quick about this solution.”