California was taken by treaty as I recall. How does that compare to the property of Jews in Europe. I don’t care how many transactions their were, unless you can show the family didn’t care at those times.
More recently (to buy voters so he wouldn't get recalled) Gray Davis supported legislation in the California legislature that would RETURN property (real and otherwise) to Mexican citizens or others of Hispanic origin who'd had it seized by California just before they were returned to Mexico for violating immigration laws.
I think someone reminded Gray that this would most properly include Japanese-Americans who had vast tracts of land and water rights improperly seized by California in the 1940s. That would have created some really nasty title problems for tens of billions of dollars of real estate in Downtown Los Angeles.
Apparantly California's Democratic party decided it was more important for rich landlords to continue to prosper than for Gray Davis to continue in office.
Bye bye Gray (you could hear them say as that particular piece of legislation went back to the committee for pigeonholing).