City Forces Property Owner to Give Up Right to Vote

...the case of Griswold v. City of Carlsbad in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California. This is an astonishing case in which city officials forced the Griswold family to give up their constitutionally protected right to vote in exchange for a building permit. Hard as that might be to believe, it is actually not unique: it's actually quite common for local governments to abuse permits by forcing property owners to give up money or land or other rights. Here's how the law works. Under the California Constitution, property owners are entitled to vote on whether their property should be assessed for local "improvements"--things like street lights or sidewalks. These are technically not taxes, but "assessments," and the state Constitution prohibits the government from imposing these assessments without giving affected property owners an opportunity to vote on them. But what the city of Carlsbad decided to do was to force people to pay these assessments up-front (which is illegal). And if the owner can't afford this--in the Griswolds' case it was almost $115,000--then the owner must sign an agreement giving up the right to vote on these assessments (large PDF file). And this waiver actually runs with the land, meaning anyone else who buys the property is also not allowed to vote...PLF