Is Angie’s List right-wing? On the environment and eminent domain…
March 3rd, 2008
That’s my opinion when I read their latest newsletter.
Indeed, you thought that Angie’s List was a progressive place to find contractors? Something like a cool cousin to Craig’s List?
Well, it might be a good place to find contractors, but it is NOT progressive. Anything but!
Check out their article lambasting eminent domain in their latest magazine (it starts on page 16). It is a collection of sensationalist stories of people who have been “cheated” out of their property rights by mean-spirited and cold governments. It includes photographs of people with the following signs and logos: “Eminent Domain Abuse”, “This land is my land”, “Thou shalt not steal”. And it includes photos of a woman crying because of eminent domain, as well as a bulldozer ripping down a house “lost to eminent domain”.
There is ZERO discussion on the other side. About how eminent domain is an often necessary and important tool to clean-up blighted areas, to close down crack houses and slums, and to protect open space and wetlands. Indeed, the 2006 California initiative that the journalist references would have made it so that property owners could be exempted from ANY government “taking”: clean water, clean air, endangered species laws, zoning, farmland protection. All of these laws would have been rolled back under the banner of eminent domain “reform”. The journalist totally fails to understand the dimension of this battle.
Indeed, most of the articles is stuffed with quotes from the ominous sounding “The Institute for Justice”, a private-property rights and “libertarian public interest group”. The journalist even goes so far as to include a sidebar from them about whether states have passed “weak” or “strong” reform. Does the journalist point out the bias of this group? Of course not.
But, hey, can you blame the guy? This journalist literally seems to live in a fantasy world.
Related posts: They're at it again; another property rights measure in California, Land use planning under orchestrated attack via initiative system, David Bragdon, infill, and the need for better land use laws (and politicians)
3 Comments Add your own
1. Dave | March 4th, 2008 at 10:47 am
The article shows why Measure 39 passed here in Oregon, a measure that put restrictions on the use of eminent domain. It saw little opposition and was even backed by 1000 Friends behind closed doors. Last time I checked 1000 Friends is not a neo con organization. So suggesting that anyone advocating for some limits on government power is a Bill O’reilly in disguise is a little on the stupid side.
2. Peter Bray | March 4th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I am talking less about Measure 39, and more about California’s attempt at eminent domain reform with Proposition 90, which was far more expansive than M39. Indeed:
The problem with this Angie’s List “article” is that it is simplistic and one-sided. The author seems to have interviewed only property rights groups that are interested in more “reform” of the type mentioned above (check their Web site). He doesn’t seem to appreciate the nuance of how eminent domain reform can be, and has been, used to undermine environmental regulations. Presumably this is because the author didn’t bother to fully understand the topic, didn’t bother to interview viewpoints at odds with the libertarians he does quote, or because he himself is a right-winger eager to use Angie’s List as a means to push his political messages.
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