Arlington pols continue to fret that the proposed property rights constitutional amendment awaiting its second pass through the General Assembly will result in “legal mayhem” if it eventually wins voter approval. Still, for all their “doomsday scenarios,” the worthies also think the measure will pass:
“Politically, this has got a lot of wind behind it,” acknowledged incoming state Sen. Barbara Favola (D-31st).
Perhaps it does, and if so, that would be a change from past sessions, where such measures only managed to pass after being brought back from the dead.
But at least one of the Democratic Senators who found it convenient to vote for initial passage of the amendment in the last session hasn’t given up hope of stopping it this time. Take it away, Janet Howell:
State Sen. Janet Howell (D-32nd) – who voted in favor of the constitutional amendment last year, something she didn’t share with the Civic Federation audience – said the only chance for opponents to halt the measure’s progress is to stop it before it gets to the full Senate.
“I’m not convinced it will pass the Privileges & Elections [Committee] in the Senate,” Howell said.
But “if it gets to the floor [of the Senate], it will pass,” she said.
That would be the same committee Sen. Howell chaired during the last session. In that role, she gave us a YouTube moment for the ages:
Depending upon how Republicans manage the partisan make-up of Senate committees, high-handed Janet may not be able to stop anything in the Privileges & Elections committee, let alone the property rights amendment. And, in a fun twist, the next chairman of that committee could very well be…Mark Obenshain, the pointed questioner in the video above and the prime mover of property rights protections in the upper house.
In the next issue of Bearing Drift Magazine, the editors strongly support the amendment’s passage:
One of the primary provisions we expect to see pushed by Sen. Mark Obenshain in the 2012 General Assembly session is eminent domain reform. After the Supreme Court broadly expanded the use of eminent domain in the infamous Kelo decision, states have pushed for stricter rules on what constitutes a public use and the kinds of situations in which eminent domain may be used. Property rights are fundamental to a free society and that is why we give our full support to the property rights amendment currently before the General Assembly.
