Measure 37 Surprises?

Both the Oregonian and the Portland Tribune have stories today (and in the past, of course) about Measure 37 (M37) developments. There seems to be some surprise that it’s not the little guy who is filing M37 complaints, though there is some of that. Duh (that’s librarian-ese for Uh huh). Just about any county law librarian could have told them this shortly after M37 passed. We prepared for an influx of ordinary people with M37 questions and instead, nothin’. It occurred to us in very short order that most of the M37 filers were people with lawyers, and in some cases, people with big law firm lawyers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing (if I had a M37 claim, I’d probably hire an attorney), but why voters and the head of Portland’s M37 program thought it was a “mom & pop” do-it-yourself game, I’ll never know:

“It’s a whole new ball game,” Dearth said. “It’s not the mom and pop, Dorothy English-style claim anymore.” [Chris Dearth, head of Portland’s M37 program] [Quoted from the Portland Tribune story.]