Next time someone says big money calls all the shots in American politics, remember that an 8-1 money advantage fueled by Michael Bloomberg and other national donors wasn’t enough to save the seats of two lawmakers who’d helped push a gun-control package through the Colorado Senate, thus infuriating constituents in a marginal Colorado Springs district and in the blue-collar Democratic stronghold of Pueblo. [Denver Post, David Kopel, Volokh Conspiracy, The Denver Channel]
Meanwhile, New York City Democratic primary voters decided against nominating whited sepulcher Eliot Spitzer as the city’s next comptroller, thus foiling Spitzer’s plan to get his hands on billions of pension fund dollars with which to engage in grandstanding and litigation [WABC, Lawrence Cunningham]
P.S. Less happily, voters in Richmond, Calif. are going to let the city administration proceed with a scheme to seize underwater mortgages by use of eminent domain [Daniel Fisher, more, earlier]
5 Comments
Re: Richmond.
“…let the city administration TRY to proceed…” I suspect the ensuing litigation both as to the legality of this scheme and the amount of compensation will be intriguing, entertaining, and expensive.
It would behoove the city administration to prepare their bankruptcy filings now to avoid the rush.
Yes, Walter, but what do you really think about Spitzer?
Wisdom of crowds?
Giving the mortgage holders market value has an intuitive appeal. But what if the market value has been artificially depressed by actions of Federal, State, or local governments, eg. to block repossession? Such government actions should also figure into computing “fair” market value.
Some of the Colorado gun restrictions seemed reasonable to me, but if I had been a resident, I would have voted for the recall. I don’t particularly admire NRA (eg Wayne LaPierre’s armed-guards-in-schools proposal), but I would rather hear them gloating the day after than the New York Times and Michael Bloomberg.