An Outright Lie About Proposition 90

by Timothy Sandefur

Proposition 90 is controversial because, in addition to its eminent domain reform, it also would require government to compensate people when it takes away their property rights through a regulation. It's hard to put that in a soundbyte. But the one way not to do it is to lie outright about the initiative, as the San Francisco Bay Guardian has done with this article's title: "Proposition 90 isn't about eminent domain." That is simply not true at all. Proposition 90 is about eminent domain. It is also about other things, and people may not like those–but to say that it's not about eminent domain is simply a false statement.