"I'm utterly baffled," says City of Portland lobbyist Marge Kafoury. "We definitely really really hate this bill." "I am mystified," says Phil Fell, lobbyist for the League of Oregon Cities. "Somehow I have to trust this is part of his strategy in a way I don't get," says Robert Liberty, executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon. The bill in question--considered the most important piece of legislation this session for home builders--would allow citizens and developers to take zoning disputes to federal courts after their first denial at the local level. In Oregon, this would cut the state Land Use Board of Appeals out of the process. Environmentalists and local officials fear that this would allow deep-pocketed developers to overwhelm local authorities. "You could go right from the planning commission to federal court," says Liberty. "What happens in Baker City when some guy says, 'See in you in federal court'? It becomes a technique for bullying local governments who aren't sophisticated, who don't have the will to fight or are looking for an excuse to give up." The bill passed the House with 248 votes, and Sen. Gordon Smith is sponsoring a companion bill in the Senate. But the Clinton administration has threatened to veto the legislation, which is opposed by a coalition of 37 state attorneys general (including Oregon's Hardy Myers), the U.S. Judicial Conference, the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Despite the lineup of his traditional allies against HR 1534, Blumenauer not only voted for the bill but made a floor speech in support of it. "I do not fear a wholesale legal assault on behalf of the development community," Blumenauer told colleagues. "I do see it as a step forward in the discussion of how we are going to direct and manage growth without undue legal and political wrangling." For all those who were unable to make sense of Blumenauer's statement on the floor of Congress (that includes Kafoury, Fell and Liberty), Blumenauer's chief aide, Bob Crane, explained that his boss was trying to make friendly with realtors and home builders so he might influence them later on the "community livability" issues so important to his legislative agenda. It was not a matter of "vote trading," Crane insists. "There was no quid pro quo." Instead, Crane says, Blumenauer merely hoped to show realtors and home builders that he was a "player"--someone they ought not to dismiss as a knee-jerk lefty. "This is a discussion in which relationships and intellectual stimulation and honest evaluation of issues plays a huge role," Crane says. "If there's anything we want, it's the opportunity for Earl to continue to have discussions with these people." Blumenauer is leading a nascent movement in Congress to use the federal government to promote the anti-sprawl vision he calls "community livability," and he's seeking allies from the development community. "When he does have discussions [with national developer lobbyists], good things happen, lights go on," says Crane. Kafoury says Blumenauer's desire to curry favor with realtors and developers makes sense. "I understand why he would want an audience with these people and why he couldn't get more in return--he's just a first-term, junior bee, on the bottom of the barrel in the minority party," Kafoury says. "But," she adds, "I think Earl would have been a player anyway, because he's smart enough to get their attention, he's got an agenda that makes sense and he's going to be in the majority party eventually--and I still would have felt awfully uncomfortable supporting 1534, even after adding it all up." |
