If you are a surviving spouse, look out, Measure 49 will get ya!

Supporters of Measure 49 claim that Measure 49 will “extend” benefits to surviving spouses.

Read the text of Measure 49 and decide for yourself:

Section 21.(2) of Measure 49 says:

(2) if the claimant is the surviving spouse of a person who was the owner of the property in fee title, the claimant’s acquisition date is the date the claimant was married to the deceased spouse of the date the spouse acquired the property, whichever is later

This hypothetical will help you understand how Measure 49 works.

Suppose Husband purchases property in 1960. In 1970, Husband marries Wife and Wife moves onto the property with Husband. In 1980, Husband adds Wife’s name to the deed to the property. In 1990, Husband dies. On January 3, 2008, Wife makes a claim for compensation.

Under current law, because Wife moved onto the property in 1970, she became an “owner”, which means the rights she is entitled to are the rights on the property in 1970.

Wife was married in 1970, but acquired the interest in the property in 1980. Which means Wife gets the rights to develop the property that were on the property in 1980. This is a big difference, because in 1973 many property owners lost their rights when the state of Oregon adopted a centralized statewide land use planning system.

Measure 49 actually hurts surviving spouses, it does not help them.

When you take the time to read Measure 49, you realize that Measure 49 simply doesn’t work.

The No on Measure 49 Website is Up!

Well, this is good news. The No on Measure 49 website is up and running. I think it looks great, and the tag line really captures what is wrong with Measure 49 - the tricks and traps that make Measure 49 nothing more than pie in the sky for Oregonians.

Now go over to the No on Measure 49 website (aka stop49.com) and sign up to volunteer to stop this horrible measure!

Don't forget to go over to NWRepublican for more information on Measure 49!

Link Removed

Apparently including a link to his website was too much for Jack Bogdanski to bear. I had included a link to Jock Bog's Blog because I think Mr. Bogdanski is fair and does a very good job on his blog of at least trying to present both sides of an issue. I never meant to imply that Mr. Bogdanski opposed Measure 49, and I appologize for any confusion this may have caused.

As for the other sites listed, I cannot vouch that any of them, or their authors, actually support or oppose Measure 49. I have simply listed these web sites as credible sources of information on Ballot Measure 49, as opposed to the blind never-think-things-through Blogs that support Measure 49 because they hate Measure 37 so very much.

Ballot Measure 49 Lie #1: Waivers are NOT transferable

One of the "selling points" of Measure 49 is the claim that Measure 49 makes "waivers" transferable.

Anyone who says that "waivers" are transferable under Measure 49 either (a) cannot read, or (b) is flat out lying to you.

Here are the facts.

The "transferability" section of Measure 49 (for retroactive claims) is Section 11(6) which says:

(6) An authorization to partition or subdivide the property, or to establish dwellings on the property, granted under section 6, 7 or 9 of this 2007 Act runs with the property and may be either transferred with the property or encumbered by another person without affecting the authorization. There is no time limit on when an authorization granted under section 6, 7 or 9 of this 2007 Act must be carried out, except that once the owner who obtained the authorization conveys the property to a person other than the owner's spouse or the trustee of a revocable trust in which the owner is the settlor, the subsequent owner of the property must create the lots or parcels and establish the dwellings authorized by a waiver under section 6, 7 or 9 of this 2007 Act within 10 years of the conveyance.

Notice, the word "waiver" is not found anywhere in this section...more on this point in a moment.

You see, under Measure 49, a property owner has to take two steps before the property owner can develop her property. First, the property owner must get a "Waiver", which is a specially defined term in Measure 49. Next, Section 11(1) requires a property owner to get "authorization" for developing the property in accordance with the "Waiver" obtained under Measure 49. In land use law parlance, and "authorization" is nothing more than a permit, like a building permit or conditional use permit.

Section 11(6) of Measure 49 clearly makes "authorizations", or permits, transferable, not Waivers. Guess what, permits are already transferable. Thanks for nothing!

I know, I know. Measure 49 supporters are going to say "It is clear that by 'authorizations' we meant 'Waivers'".

Guess what, that doesn't get you anywhere.

You see, "Waiver" is a specially defined term in Measure 49. When a court is asked to interpret Measure 49, the court is going to look at the text and context of the measure to figure out whether "Waivers" are transferable under Measure 49.

And guess what, the courts are going to say "Under Measure 49, 'Waivers' ARE NOT transferable".

Why? Because from the fact that Measure 49 uses the term "Waiver" throughout the measure, and the fact that "Waiver" is a specially defined term in Measure 49, and the fact that the transferability section of Measure 49 uses the term "authorization" and not "Waiver", the Court is going to hold that under Measure 49, "waivers" are not supposed to be transferable.

The Court will tell us that if the drafters of Measure 49 meant for "waivers" to be transferable, the drafters would have said so in the Transferability Section of Measure 49. And the fact that Measure 49 does not specifically use the term "Waiver" in the Transferability Section means that the drafters of Measure 49 did not intend "Waivers" to be transferable under Measure 49.

This is an application of the PGE v. BOLI test for interpreting statutes. It is well-settled law, and there is no way for Measure 49's proponents to work around this major flaw in Measure 49.

Oh yeah, the preceding argument only applied to retroactive claims. Guess what, Measure 49 specifically says that prospective "waivers" are not transferable. See Section 12(6) of Measure 49.

According to the language of Measure 49 (not the rhetoric), retroactive and prospective claims are not transferable.

Lie #1 exposed.

The Big Lie: Ballot Measure 49

If you become a frequent reader of this blog, you will quickly come to realize how bad Ballot Measure 49 is going to be for Oregonians.

Ballot Measure 49 was referred to the voters by the 2007 Oregon Legislature. Make no mistake, Ballot Measure 49 will REPEAL Measure 37, the popular property-rights legislation passed by 61% of Oregonians at the 2004 election.

Measure 49 is a result of legislation at its worst. It was drafted behind closed doors, outside of the view of the public, and the public was intentionally left out of the process. Now, the legislators who voted for Measure 49 are going to try to lie to the voters and hope none of the voters figure out the Big Lie.

That is the purpose of this Blog: to expose the Big Lie that is Measure 49.

I will go through Measure 49, and compare the actual text of Measure 49 with what the politicians claim Measure 49 will actually do. I know when you finish reading this Blog, you will find out Measure 49 is one Big Lie.