Voters in three Western states saw through Howie Rich’s expensive con job for what it was and handed him a solid drubbing on Tuesday. Initiatives that would have wreaked havoc on land use controls and threatened to sap billions of dollars from state treasuries were rejected by voters in California, Idaho and Washington state.

Only in one state, Arizona, was Rich successful.

Nonprofits funded by Rich spent $8.6 million to finance campaigns that collected signatures in eight states to get the takings initiatives on the ballot and then  promote their passage. In four states, Missouri , Montana, Nevada and Oklahoma, the initiatives were barred from the ballot either by the courts or state officials.

Here’s how sanity prevailed on Nov. 7:

In California, Proposition 90 went down by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent.  Read the measure and analysis of it is here.

In Idaho, Proposition 2 suffered a 3:1 humiliation, suffering a 76 percent to 24 percent drubbing. Read the measure here. 

In Washington, voters rejected Rich’s Proposition 933 by a margin of 58 percent to 42 percent. Read the measure here. 

Unfortunately, Arizona voters were not so perceptive. They approved Proposition 207 by 65 percent to 34 percent.  Read the measure here. 

In a report published before the Nov. 7 election, Public Citizen said,

“These initiatives, falsely advertised as necessary to prevent state governments from intruding on property owners, are actually intended to serve as cash cows for developers. If approved, the initiatives would leave state governments with an unacceptable choice between rolling back decades of environmental protection rules – such as those to combat sprawl, protect wetlands and preserve clean air and water – or paying bounties to developers as ‘compensation’ for being prevented from using their land however they please.”

Read More...

CNN conducted exit polls yesterday asking voters which issues were "extremely important." The results:

42% - Corruption
40% - Terrorism
39% - Economy
37% - Iraq

Despite the relative lack of attention that corruption received compared to the Iraq War in recent months, it came out on top for importance to the voting public.  This is good news for all of us to keep commitments outlined in the Voters First Pledge.  For the new Congress, there is no excuse not to pass real lobbying and campaign finance reform. 

Watch the analysis here: