Washington Governor Chris Gregoire and six of her Democratic and Republican predecessors came out against I-933, the so-called property rights initiative on next month’s ballot.

Their logic wasn’t new: the measure, which requires government to compensate landowners for restricting development, would cost too much and tie up land-use planning in the courts.

Yet bipartisan opposition may not halt the measure. Four living and former Oregon governors opposed a similar measure in that state in 2004 but it passed with 61 percent of the vote. In 2002, a Washington roads and transit package, referendum 51, was soundly rejected despite bipartisan support from politicians, labor and business.

Proponents of I-933, of course, couched the latest measure as a way for citizens to restrain an unruly government. “It’s political, and government officials are opposed to an initiative that will hold government officials and politicians accountable,” Dan Wood, a spokesman for the initiative and the Washington Farm Bureau, which backs the measure, is quoted as saying.