Cityview: Strange Bedfellows
Thanks to a tip from Chris Woods – Des Moines Cityview has a great bit of reporting on the politics going on surrounding the eminent domain bill.
A bit from the article:
“This does not make sense politically. I can’t figure this out,” says Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, a Republican who managed Iowa’s eminent domain bill in the House.Kaufmann says he doesn’t understand certain Democrats’ reluctance to return for a special session. “There’s a hesitancy there. I can’t get to that hesitancy,” he says. “It’s almost like there’s something missing, but I don’t know what that is right now.”
...
“I smell Doug Gross in all of this,” Kaufmann says. “I’ve had some pretty solid Republicans tell me this, too.”
The reason? A number of proposed lake projects – particularly one in Madison County where Doug Gross stands to profit from land ownership around the proposed lake. Of course, many others have proposed economic development projects around said lakes, including a rather odd alliance:
Further muddying the waters is the fact that certain people – notably Congressman [Steve] King – are talking about creating private economic development around the publicly financed lakes.In a 2004 letter to one of the Clarke County supervisors, King states, “[T]he ability for private development on and near the lake will be critical to the financial success of the project. A portion of lakefront property, possibly as much as one third of the total lake area, should be used for private development of homes and related businesses.”
If you read the whole article, you find what is probably behind all of this: campaign donations.
I was initially unsure of what all of this meant, but I think I am now (oddly) in agreement with Chris Rants: let’s get this eminent domain law (or, if that’s not legally possible – a new law) on the books – we can tweak definitions later.
Can we also discuss campaign finance reforms while we’re at it?
