California Restricts Taking of Homes, Properties

While most of the focus on Tuesday’s elections was on Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, California voters were overwhelmingly approving a law to ban government from seizing homes for private development projects, typically done through “eminent domain” procedures.

The new law, Proposition 99, passed with more than 67 percent of the vote. The measure will prohibit government from taking a single-family home or condominium for private redevelopment in places where an owner has lived for at least a year. The rule also continues to pay property owners fair market value if their land was taken for roads, schools, hospitals and other public projects, where eminent domain could still permit government seizures.

In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a government could use eminent domain to take a person’s home and give it to a private developer, according to a study by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund, a group that urged passage of the new law. Since then, more than 40 states had reformed their eminent domain laws, but California had failed to act until the Tuesday vote.

“The League … has carefully examined Prop. 99. This is a straightforward measure that does what it says: prohibits the seizure of homes for private development projects,” Janis R. Hirohama, president of the organization, said in a prepared statement. The League was one of many groups supporting the legislation.

However, Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, had fought against the measure because it still allows government seizures for some projects.