Clinton may challenge Texas vote rules

LAREDO, Texas (AP) – Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign has raised the possibility of a challenge to Texas’ primary and caucus rules just days before the contest, drawing a warning against legal action from the state’s Democratic Party.

Top strategists for Democratic rival Barack Obama said Friday they supported the party’s action, suggesting the Clinton campaign was trying to block the reporting of caucus results.

Aides to Clinton said earlier this week they were alarmed at the lack of clarity about many of the caucus rules and expressed their concerns on a conference call with Obama’s staff and state party officials. Texas has a two-step voting process, with a primary and then caucuses shortly after the polls close.

Specifically, Clinton aides questioned a provision allowing caucus attendees to vote to move the location if they choose to do so, and whether people who had cast so-called “provisional ballots” in the primary would have their votes counted in the caucus.

They also expressed concern about the automated phone system precinct chairs would use to call in the results of each caucus, saying the party hadn’t yet trained anyone to use the system properly.

Clinton political director Guy Cecil said he asked party officials to spell out the rules in memo form and to send them to both campaigns.

“We want to see the results in writing, and we reserve the right to challenge something if we don’t believe it reflects something that was discussed on the call,” he said, insisting that if there were clear problems with how the caucuses were being run, “you are allowed to say something about it.”

Cecil on Friday denied that the campaign planned to sue the party, which will manage roughly 8,700 caucuses Tuesday evening.

“There were no veiled threats of lawsuits of any kind,” Cecil said of the conference call.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the Clinton campaign was trying to minimize the results of the caucuses. The former first lady and her team have made clear their unhappiness with caucuses, believing that they cater to the hard-core party activists who tend to support Obama. The Illinois senator has won 13 caucuses so far, while Clinton has won just two.

“This takes it to a new level, which is they don’t want the people who are participating in those caucuses to have their results reported in a timely fashion. And I assume that’s a very self-serving decision,” Plouffe said.

Texas party officials said they believed Cecil was threatening legal action and wrote a letter to him and to Obama senior strategist Steve Hildebrand reflecting that concern.

“If it is true that litigation is imminent between one or both of your campaigns and the Texas Democratic Party, such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated democratic process that is involving a record number of participants here in Texas and across the nation,” party attorney Chad Dunn wrote. “Litigation regarding the TDP could cripple the momentum of a resurging Texas Democratic Party and ultimately the November 2008 election.”

The letter also noted that many of Clinton’s senior campaign advisers in Texas had helped to develop the rules governing the state’s caucus system. A Texas party official also noted that former President Clinton won the state’s caucuses in 1992 and 1996 following the same rules.

Texas has 193 delegates up for grabs Tuesday. Of those delegates, 126 will come from the primary, and 67 from the caucus.

Hillary – “You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” 

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Land Value ‘Correction’ Surprises Homeowners

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA – (WP) – It was no surprise to Cathlin Bowman that the 2008 real estate assessment she received from Fairfax County this week showed a modest dip in the value of her three-bedroom McLean home, to $564,930 from $567,590 in 2007.

A barren housing market and a deteriorating economy have pushed residential property values down about 3 percent county-wide.

What stunned her was the gaping disparity between the value of the 1951 brick-and-shingle house on Barbee Street and the land under it. The 11,500-square-foot lot, assessed at $301,000 last year, is now worth $501,000 — an increase of 66 percent.

Her house, assessed at $266,590 in 2007, is now valued at $63,930 — a decrease of 76 percent.

“Heck, $63,000 won’t even buy you a decent kitchen these days,” Bowman, director of learner-centered education at the American College of Cardiology, wrote in an e-mail Wednesday to the Fairfax Department of Tax Administration. “The county now believes my house is worth less than a mobile home or even a studio condominium.”

Bowman is one of scores of bewildered — and suspicious — Fairfax taxpayers whose homes are shriveling in assessed value while the underlying dirt appreciates robustly. Some have suggested a massive software foul-up that flipped land and building values. Others wonder whether the county is trying to hang on to tax revenue in an economy sliding toward recession.

“Real estate interests have probably benefited in some way,” said George Taft, a retired State Department lawyer whose home in the Wilton Woods neighborhood fell in assessed value from $431,070 to $267,480, while the land went up nearly $100,000.

County officials said there is no mistake, nor any bid to gain extra money. What homeowners are seeing, they said, is an attempt to raise land values that have remained disproportionately flat in recent years relative to the homes.

Officials said the elevated assessments are based on an analysis of sales of nearby vacant land. Because the supply of undeveloped property in the county is diminishing, it took more than a year of sales to document the change, they said. Included were neighborhoods with lots that once held older homes that were torn down and replaced by much larger residences.

The numbers, said tax department director Kevin Greenlief, reflect “a pent-up correction,” but nothing more. Bottom-line assessments are unaffected; only the allocations of value between land and building have shifted, he said.

“In no way, shape or form is DTA cooking the books or propping up revenues because of the budget situation,” he said.

Members of the Board of Supervisors, pelted with phone calls and e-mails over the past couple of days, questioned Greenlief’s account.

“We’ve asked for a plain-language explanation from DTA,” said Supervisor Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason). “My question is, why is a small percentage of vacant, undeveloped land apparently driving the land values for all developed property?”

Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) said the one-year change is striking. “The assessors need to be pressed to justify their rather dramatic attribution of value to the land,” he said.

Supervisor Jeff C. McKay (D-Lee) said he has asked County Attorney David P. Bobzien for an opinion on whether the board can challenge the tax department’s methodology and push for a reassessment of values. He said the agency is playing a questionable game of catch-up.

“It appears that we are behind in keeping up on raw land, and now to bury that, we depreciated people’s structures, all in one year,” he said.

McKay added that he was especially concerned that the spike in land values would result in more homes being torn down in favor of new homes that are wildly out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood.

“We’ve said that the land is way more valuable than the houses. Are we not encouraging more teardowns?” he asked.

Supervisors said they are also miffed at Greenlief’s failure to signal the board that such a major correction was in the works. Greenlief said the study of land values was discussed with the Board of Equalization, the nine-member panel appointed by supervisors to hear homeowner appeals and change assessments. Board of Equalization members told the county staff last year that in hearing tax cases, they had noticed that assessed land values were out of step.

Greenlief said he should have been more careful about keeping supervisors and taxpayers in the loop.

“I would accept responsibility for that,” he said. “I’d have to say that it was an oversight on my part that we didn’t do a better job. The values are correct. It’s the process that needs to be better.”

Loudoun County Assessor Todd Kaufman said that sudden, large reapportionments are not uncommon in places such as Fairfax because the dearth of undeveloped land leaves little for assessors to work with in comparing parcels. Sometimes it can take several years for enough sales to accrue in developed counties before sufficient data are available to update the value of underlying land, he said. Those updates can appear in the form of spikes on a property owner’s annual assessment.

“Loudoun’s different than Fairfax County,” Kaufman said. “There’s preliminary subdivisions being developed all the time in Loudoun.”

In Alexandria, where assessments dipped overall, the land values rose on average about 10 percent in the city, with about three-quarters of neighborhoods affected. The values rose because “the location is so desirable,” said Cindy Smith-Page, director of real estate assessments for Alexandria.

“So many properties have been gutted or demolished to build houses that are newer and larger,” she said.

Smith-Page said that she has received some calls questioning the land-value increase, but not many, because overall assessments have not increased.

Prince William County will not send out its assessments until the weekend of March 14.

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