Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Libertarians’ efforts to pass “regulatory-takings” ballot measures in six Western states have run into difficulty in courtrooms in two states. Over the past week, judges in Nevada and Montana tossed out takings ballot measures.

These ballot measures, largely funded by libertarian activists in New York City and Chicago, want to make it impossible for state and local governments to adopt new land-use regulations.

I helped expose the stealthy campaign — which has also placed takings measures on November ballots in Washington, California, Idaho and Arizona — in a July 24 package in High Country News.

Validating some of my reporting, on September 13, a Montana judge, in a scathing opinion, found that petition circulators engaged in a “pervasive and general pattern of fraud,” deceiving people into signing the petitions for a three-pack of libertarian initiatives in Montana.

Meanwhile, on September 8, the Nevada Supreme Court targeted the campaign’s strategy of tucking regulatory-takings within a different issue: the governments’ ability to seize private property though powers of eminent domain. The Nevada court said the two issues cannot be combined in a single Nevada ballot measure. For details of that ruling, go here, here, here and here.

Many interests press the lawsuits against these ballot measures, including local governments, planners, environmentalists, chambers of commerce, contractors and homebuilders. They all don’t want the chaos of land uses that would be caused by a regulatory-takings law.

I also wrote specifically about California’s ballot measure, Proposition 90, for the San Francisco Chronicle Insight section. And the Chronicle has a podcast interview of me, with more perspective on the libertarian campaign.

I’ve also posted podcasts that are excerpts from some of my interviews of people concerned one way or the other, and podcast excerpts from my interview of Howie Rich, the wealthy libertarian who leads the campaign.

For a summation of Rich’s activities, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, in Washington, DC, has also followed my coverage by assembling a website called HowieRichExposed.

The courtroom victories over the campaign in Montana and Nevada still leave regulatory-takings on the ballot in the other four states. Stay tuned.