Justices Rule Cities Can Take Property for Private Development

[Rych]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23wire-scotus.html?ei=5065&en=863d5efe67a81cff&ex=1120190 400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print


Pissing on the 5th Amendment.

[TrailBate]

write your reps.

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

[Quo Fan]

I wonder if they wanted a "rich" neighborhood the justices would have voted the other way.

[jerseygirl]

They already take our kids to fight their wars....

[FriedRys]

Kinda makes ya sick when you realise that it was Democratic appointees that passed this.

[Slider]

It would be kinda hard, regardless of how the 5-4 vote went, for your statement to be true since only two if the current Justices were appointed by a Democrat.

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[FriedRys]

Well then maybe I should shut the hell up because I don't know what I'm talking about :-[

[huff'npuff]

" of the people,by the people,for the people"...........YEHRIGHT!

[Mr_Cheeze]

It would be kinda hard, regardless of how the 5-4 vote went, for your statement to be true since only two if the current Justices were appointed by a Democrat.

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Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that the true conservative judges all dissented along with O'Conner. Probably leaves some of you guys with mixed feelings, eh? It shouldn't. This is strictly a constitutional ruling for those guys. The fifth amendment seems pretty clear to me. Leave it up to the "progressives" to rule that a larger tax base takes precedent over peoples' private property, considering such a consequence "for the public good". I guess that poor, blighted neighborhoods where most residents are unable to uproot from aren't public enough. Hey, we're going to revitalize this area, you people, you can all move to the next closest ghetto... at least until you are forces to move from there, too.

In all seriousness, state legislators are going to have to find ways to set the strictest of guidelines before this worst case scenario could ever possibly happen. Nobody is going to just uproot an entire block so that a McDonalds and some Cell Phone stores and a gas station can open up in their stead. This decision really forces the states' hands.

[BG]

I don't see the big deal.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/14.html#3

BG

[Slider]

It happened something like this. The State said "New London generally is blighted. Let's encourage development there." A local group said "We know a great spot, let's kick out the homeowners." The state said "We'll fund you and help you get the land."

New London generally is not the most attractive spot on the CT coast, but that particular neighborhood is not exactly blighted. The home owners who sued have, for the most part, taken good care of their property. They appreciate, I'm sure, that there is not much coastal real estate of any kind available and the price there is better than most, and so have taken care proudly of what they had. In New London, though, living shore front does not necessarily mean you are among the privileged.

Now a private corporation of local business and commumity leaders - the privileged - will own the land and develop it using lots of state money, and making a lot for themselves.

Eminent domain has a place in urban planning. The question in my mind is whether this is a proper application of it. I can see needing highway, airport or school space. In this case, it seems more about bullies using the courts to dislocate people who simply made the mistake of seeing the value in a neighborhood before the State did.

I admit the subsequent development should make the place better, but success is far from certain. Check out the whole fiasco surrounding Windham Mills for some insight into how things can go really wrong. That economically challenged town has been left holding the bag, and they can hardly afford it.

I guess you can make the case that the taking was valid. At the minimum, I think the homeowners should get a premium over far market value plus shares in the developing corporation.

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[BG]

"At the minimum, I think the homeowners should get a premium over far market value plus shares in the developing corporation."



Definately should happen.

BG

[GeepNutt]

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

[ArmOnFire]

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html


There is good riding in Weare NH I'm told!
;D

Great article, doubt it will be passed by the selectmen.

[felixatvtc]

I can't wait until we blaze,pave, and ruin ever inch of earth. Wonder what the human race will ruin then.

[sizlinseagulsoup]

Rych, glad there is something we can agree about.

Of course, you'd have to be an idiot to think it's a good thing that Walmart could take your land.

[Slider]

Interesting fallout, but it won't help the New Londoners. From today's Hartford Courant.

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Lawmakers Stand Up To Court

Bipartisan Coalition Hopes To Dilute Impact Of Eminent Domain Ruling

By DAVID LIGHTMAN
Washington Bureau Chief

July 1 2005

WASHINGTON -- A highly unusual congressional coalition of urban liberals and Sun Belt conservatives began moving swiftly Thursday to dilute the impact of last week's Supreme Court ruling in a New London eminent domain case.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, led a team of GOP House members and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., headed a Democratic group that will jointly fight to deny federal money to any project in which economic development triggered government to exercise its power of eminent domain.

The two sides came together from opposite places.

Conyers - who said with a laugh, "When I see myself voting the same way as Tom DeLay, I carefully reconsider what I've done" - recalled how government often took the homes of lower-income minority group members to build glittery urban projects. DeLay saw a need to stop courts from overreaching, and to protect property owners from government intrusion.

They have a powerful weapon. Their bill could result in staggering losses to cities and states that depend on Community Development Block Grants and other Washington money. The Senate is considering similar legislation.

This flurry of legislative action - an unusually quick, bipartisan response to a court ruling - is aimed at easing the impact of last Thursday's 5-4 Supreme Court decision in the Kelo vs. City of New London case.

The court said the government could seize a home, small business or private property and transfer it to another private interest if that transfer would help the community's economic development.

Nationally, the political appeal of the lawmakers' effort is simple: This is classic little person vs. big government, big corporations, big everything.

It helps the populist cause that is centered on Susette Kelo, a New London nurse whose property is in the bull's-eye. Seven families on New London's Fort Trumbull peninsula now face eviction because of the court ruling.

"Who's Tom DeLay?" Kelo asked Thursday when told about the bill.

Then she chuckled. "We've been waiting for help for seven years, and no one other than the Institute for Justice [which argued her case] helped us," she said. "So I'm grateful."

But she could not discuss the fine points of what a good bill might include. "I'm a nurse. Ask me a question about cardiac stuff," Kelo said. "I don't know anything about politics."

And that, said DeLay and Conyers and their backers, is the point. They sense a groundswell building among people not ordinarily involved in lobbying Congress. There's even a website that is selling T-shirts and coffee mugs imprinted with quotes from Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor, who dissented in the Kelo case.

For $18.99 one can buy a T-shirt that says, "Something has gone seriously awry with this court's interpretation of the Constitution," as Thomas wrote. A junior spaghetti strap version costs $2 more. A $14.99 mug also is available.

This is the ultimate grassroots issue, liberals and conservatives agreed. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., called Kelo the "Dred Scott decision of the 21st century," a reference to the 1857 court ruling saying Scott should remain a slave and was personal property and therefore not free. That high court decision helped trigger the Civil War.

DeLay said the decision in the Kelo case reminded him of something "1984" author George Orwell would write, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is sponsoring the Senate bill, called the court ruling "anathema to our basic core values."

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., put it another way: "The government never takes rich people's property. It takes poor people's property."

Despite the coalition, the bill's success is no certainty. House Democratic leader Nancy D. Pelosi, D-Calif., said she was reluctant to fool with a Supreme Court decision, but she acknowledged that the ruling had problems.

"When you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court," she said, so she would oppose any such legislation.

"If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken," Pelosi said.

Also expected to be lukewarm or even opposed are many of the nation's mayors, who are often torn between a desire to protect citizens like Kelo and to redevelop impoverished areas. At the U.S. Conference of Mayors, spokeswoman Elena Temple had no response to Thursday's proposals.

New London city officials said they don't think their project would be affected by the proposed legislation because it does not rely on federal money.

The bill's skeptics face a battle from some powerful forces.

One is the Conyers team, which includes such liberal stalwarts as Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and others who see lower-income people powerless as big government acts on its whims.

"African Americans' continuing ability to stay in the urban game is very important," said Conyers. "We've had expressways come through Detroit, and we've had eminent domain used to expand auto plants in our neighborhoods."

"Urban renewal usually meant urban removal," said Rep. Melvin L. Watt, D-N.C., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Those views are typical of lawmakers from minority communities, particularly those old enough to remember urban renewal efforts in the 1950s and 1960s.

"African Americans from that era have no good memories of eminent domain," said David A. Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group that studies trends in the black community.

"There's a feeling that the court decision reinforces that power," he said.

To some lawmakers, the Kelo decision stoked personal memories. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, remembered when his family home in New York state was in the path of an interstate highway.

"The Rockefellers owned land on the alternative route," he said, so it was clear the house where Simmons' family had lived for 20 years was in danger of being seized. "We did fight. I remember the stress and strain," Simmons said. The family eventually sold the house.

DeLay and his allies come at the issue from the completely opposite end of the political spectrum. Western lawmakers have long complained the government is too intrusive, and has no business taking open space for public uses or saddling farmers and ranchers with all kinds of restrictive regulations.

Rep. Dennis Rehberg, R-Mont., is a sixth-generation rancher. "You can always find a higher, better use for land," he said. "Every one of us lives in a community with failed economic projects. The state is not in the best position to judge what is the best use of our land."

The Kelo case has become a GOP rallying cry for another reason: It illustrates to conservatives how judicial activism can get out of hand.

"This Congress is not going to just sit by, idly sit by, and let an unaccountable judiciary make these kinds of decisions," DeLay said, "without taking our responsibility and our duty given to us by the Constitution to be a check on the judiciary. And this is an example of doing that."

To help drive the point home, the House added a provision to a housing spending bill Thursday making it clear where it stood.

Members voted to bar federal housing and related money to "improve or construct infrastructure support on lands acquired through the use of eminent domain of private property for economic development." The DeLay-Conyers effort would apply to the entire range of government funding.
Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant


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[Mr_Cheeze]

Why The New York Times Loves Eminent Domain

Elite newspapers and liberal activists embrace the Kelo decision at their long-term peril.

(http://www.reason.com/0510/co.mw.why.shtml)

[Rych]

They already take our kids to fight their wars....


I know most of these kids, like the Cruiser joined the army 'cause thier father and brothers were in the army. And they figured they better join before they got drafted