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Supreme Court Rules Private Property Can be Seized
slew writes "CNN is reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case where a local community seized private houses for commercial development (not public works) under the guise of eminent domain. Needless to say, the little guy loses to the commercial developer this case...
"
it was a 5-4 decision, which the conclusion being that the supreme court doesn't feel it's their job the decide what falls within the "public good" clause of eminent domain.
They stated that this doesn't nothing to prevent states from legislating limits on eminent domain seizures by municipal government
Inconceivable!
And interestingly enough it was done by the more liberal (er, "progressive") members of the bench. The three hard conservatives were soundly against it.
...
For the majority: Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer
In dissent: O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas
For the record, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas were in the dissent. The minority. The losers. The folks saying "no, the government doesn't have the right to take private land from some citizens on behalf of other private citizens as long as there are a few extra tax dollars to be picked up in the process".
If you want to argue party politics ("It's all Bush's fault, favoring Special Interests"), there are plenty of threads where you can do so and still be on-topic.
Unless you're so blinded by partisan politics that you consider O'Connor, Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas to be liberals (well, at least for today), this isn't one of those threads.
This isn't about Republicans vs. Democrats. It's about libertarians vs. statists.
The four judges who voted AGAINST the local government's land grab were Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas and O'Commor. It's the liberals who want to give away private property - the conservatives want to give away PUBLIC property.
guess we need bush judges more than ever now
Guess what idiots don't understand? They don't understand that the liberals on the supreme court voted for this. The conservatives were against it.
Remember how Bush made his money in baseball: building a larger stadium on land siezed under eminent domain? http://espn.go.com/mlb/bush/saturday.html
Let's see:
In favor:
John Paul Stevens - Ford/republican
Anthony Kennedy - Reagan/republican
David H. Souter - Bush/republican
Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Clinton/democrat
Stephen G. Breyer - Clinton/democrat
Against:
Sandra Day O'Connor - Reagan/republican
William H. Rehnquist - Nixon-Reagan/ republican
Antonin Scalia - Reagan/republican
Clarence Thomas - Bush/republican
I'd say toss up on whether more bush/republican judges would help here. Both democrats were in favor, but so were three republicans.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"Does this frighten anybody but me?"
Nope! I'm frightened by it too.
But let's not look at this as a strictly U.S. problem. In reality, the only thing that the Federal Government did wrong was taking no action (essentially, deciding not to decide.)
FWIW, the CT case is not unprecedented:
Six state supreme courts have ruled that private economic development projects are a considered public use: Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, and (obviously) Connecticut. Eight states have ruled that private economic development is not considered public use: Arkansas,Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, South Carolina, and Washington. I would like to see my state added to that list, so off I go to write to my State Representative.
In this instance, the judges say that local officials know best. (Never mind what the owners of the land think.)
The part that makes this really bad is that the Court isn't looking at the law and the Constitution, but at the circumstances. They're supposed to be judging the law, not making new laws as they did here.
A similar thing happened in the medical marijuana case. The judges said that they thought the "medical" thing was a sham, that this was all about people wanting a way around Federal drug laws. They had no legal basis for that finding, it was just what they thought about the issue. So they allowed the extension of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution to include the doctor-patient relationship.
These decisions are symptomatic of an out of control Court.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
That said, I think that this idea that urban renewal (extending beyond a blighted area, which has been allowed for a while, for cleaning up slums and such) is a valid reason for taking, seems problematic to me. MBITLITF (My brother is the lawyer in the family), but it seems clear that this is a continuation of a trend to expand this power beyond what I would consider reasonable. Building a hotel and whatever else in the hopes that people will come to visit and thereby provide jobs seems just plain dumb, but the courts basically said that they can't make a ruling based on that; if the government thinks it is a good idea, that is good enough, and to overrule them would be a kind of judicial activism. (See, everyone hates judicial activism when it is convenient!)
Most exciting phrase in science: not "Eureka!" but "Hmm... That's funny..." -Asimov (abridged for \. limits)
Are you sure they have to be paid market value?
In my country (Chile), when the government seizes property, it pays the declared value, the value at which the property is taxed. Since this is normally lower than the real market value, people are even more screwed.
But then, it is not for the sake of private companies...
Technically, that wasn't Rush Limbaugh, but guest host Roget Hedgecock.
I'm amazed at how well people like Roger, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, and Mark Fuhrman do after getting a ton of press under bad circumstances.
In most instances, however, many property owners are offered quite a bit below market value for a particular piece of land... And the bad thing you can't sell it. The very instant someone wants your property for eminent domain purposes your property value is nonexistant because there's no potential for profit--or any profit more than the county wants to give you, anyhow.
It's the preverbial 800lb Gorilla. Take a bushel of bananas to appease him or be crushed.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
The place where this is happening. The best that I can offer is my outrage at this, as I cannot even fathom this comming into play ...
The following is a list of email addresses that you may find useful:
City Manager - Richard Brown rbrown@ci.new-london.ct.us
City Council:
Mayor
Jane L. Glover 860-442-6296
kente219@aol.com
Deputy Mayor
William S. Morse 860-442-0233
billmorse1956@hotmail.com
Councilor
Jason Catala 860-447-3848
Jason_CatalaBOE@yahoo.com
Councilor
Margaret Mary Curtin 860-443-0373
pegcurtin@snet.net
Councilor
Gerard J. Gaynor 860-443-6346
Gjgdeacon@aol.com
Councilor
Robert Pero 860-447-2723
pero6_98@yahoo.com
Councilor
Elizabeth Sabilia 860-437-8031
Sabilia@sdwllc.com
I would suggest everyone writing any of the above, and let them know how displeased you are with thier actions.
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
Gregory Bateson, the American biologist said... "adversarial systems are notoriously subject to irrelevant determinism. The relative strength of the adverseries is likely to rule the decision regardless of the relative strength of their arguments."
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
It says shall not be taken for PUBLIC use. They took it for PRIVATE use. And of course from the article, do you SEE anything about the compensation? How do we know they weren't paid fair market value for their homes? Sure it's a pain in the ass, but the key points here are: 1) It was taken for PRIVATE use and the constitution doesn't give any statements concerning that. 2) The constitution says without just compensation. If they were paid them fair market value for their homes under any circumstance, that's just tough I've seen many homes gobbled up for road construction, road widening, whatever kind of public works for decades. That's just the way it goes.
But Kennedy was only nominated because Bork was Borked, so Reagan had to pick someone more moderate. Same basic thing with Souter (not a specific Borking, but the fear of it).
I find your use of the term "Borked" to be offensive. Do you have any idea of who Bork even was? Time for a history lesson:
In 1973, Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was demanding tapes and Presidential documents related to the Watergate break-in. Rather than turn over the evidence, President Nixon directed Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned his position rather than fire the Special Prosecutor. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus refused and Nixon fired Ruckelshaus.
Finally, Nixon turned to then Solicitor General Robert Bork, who by law became the acting Attorney General when the Attorney General and deputy attorney general were absent. Bork carried out Nixon's order to fire Cox. After Bork fired Cox, Nixon abolished the office of the Special Prosecutor and had FBI agents quickly seal off the offices of Richardson and Ruckelshaus in the Justice Department and at Cox's headquarters in an office building in Washington, D.C.
So stop painting Bork as a victim of dirty tricks by mean liberals. He was an evil bastard who acted in concert with Nixon to thwart a legal investigation into Watergate. He lacked the ethics, judgment, and integrity to serve as dog catcher, much less as a Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Suicide rate for divorced men is over 30%, divorce rate is over 50%
This is not at all right. Google says the actual rate is 43.7 suicides per 100,000 divorced men, which is 0.0437%, far below 1%.
I don't point this out to minimize your problems, just to show you that over 99.9% of divorced men get through it, and you will too, even if it seems overwhelming right now. Hang in there.
OK, I just read the whole dang thing.
I have no problem saying that, for this case, the dissenting position should have been the majority position, for reasons beyond the fact that I agree with the immediate outcome.
I further have no problem in stating that the 3 of the 4 dissenters are the most consistently conservative members of the SCOTUS, while those in the majority vary from conservative to moderately liberal. (There are no currently no consistently liberal voices on the bench)
However, this does not mean that the majority opinion is "liberal", or even that the dissenting position is necessarily "conservative"; there's somewhat more complex issues at play here.
Let's consider another rubric, in which we consider the "political inclination" of the reasoning behind the differing opinion, ordered by the weight given in their argumentation:
Supporting the Majority:
1. State's Rights / Federal Gov't Defer to State-Level Authority: (the determination of the Conn. Supreme Courts were deferred to); this is "classically conservative" position
2. Strict Consideration of Law and Precedent: this is rather specific to how the SC conducts its business, but I think it's also fair to say that they used "conservative" reasoning in their approach (i.e. they saw no need to disrupt tradition or precedent, and so sought to follow it)
3. Favoring the General Public Good over the Individual Public Good: (the specifics of the case were examined and held that the development planning process was handled above board) - favoring the public good is generally considered to be a liberal position, but in the majority opinion there was little emphasis on the "public good" beyond the state's right to determine what this means.
Supporting the Minority:
1. Gov't may Not Interfere with Private Property - this is a classically conservative position
2. Federal Gov't May Override State-level (local) Issues - during the Civil War this defined the "Republican" position - however, since the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's this has been re-framed as the liberal position
3. Proposed Amendment/Clarification of Existing Legislation - ("Legislating from the bench") - recent propaganda to the contrary, "activist judges" are liberal, conservative, moderate, or whatever. However, this sort of activity may be seen as procedurally Liberal (i.e. it makes waves) just as stricter interpretations make be seen as procedurally Conservative.
My conclusion is that while it is probably fair to label the dissenting opinion as an argument rising from conservative thinking, I could just as easily label the majority opinion as such.
Ultimately, I think we have a conflict between Moderate/Conservative process (i.e. the Court not seeking to make waves) and Conservative values (i.e. the underlying goals and ideals of Conservatism).
Either way this ruling sucks, but it annoys me greatly when
people look at an issue like this and immediately start to draw party line borders. Nuance can be important.
I used to think conservatives were the ones who stood for fiscal responsibility and small government with limited powers.
It happened to the liberals too.
liberal (liberal):
Sounds pretty good to me. There's no safe ideologies anymore.
They may want to consider figuring out that pesky 2nd Amendment thing first. Or invest in a lot of Kevlar. Not that I'm advocating violence. But I do know a few "hicks" who take owning their own home very seriously.
I consider my self a conservative (on economic issues, not so much on social). I live in Northern VA and agree with you on the 2nd part. As do several people I know (who I met in college in CT) who live in New Jersey, New York, Pensylvania (I dare you to call the Jersey guy a hick) and when we read about this over a year ago, yeah, "You can have my property when you pry it from my cold dead hands" was pretty much the summary of our response.
This is one of the cases that make me wonder how long until we have an open revolt in the country. Or something similar.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
here is the complete PDF file with the ruling, I found it from The Supreme Court website.
Although I live in the other side of the Atlantic, I wrote about this issue on my blog. I read most of the ruling, and I didn't like it.
Here's what happened:
I wrote this overview quickly from my memory after reading most of the 04-108 ruling. I encourage you to read it, too, as it contains many interesting references to other court rulings too.
It's already happened. One millionaire was killed by police during a 'drug raid'. Turned out they were trying to seize his land through the drug seizure laws because the sheriff wanted it...
It just keeps moving up. This is why I'm pissed at government right now, because they keep trying this sort of stuff, and the courts keep ruling for them, sooner or later.
I don't read AC A human right
Alas, there's no higher court
It's America. There is a higher court: the media and public opinion. Use them well, for nothing sells like scandal. Spread the story far and wide. Make sure that every person who rents the new offices, every person who stays in the new hotel and every person who otherwise uses the new facilities know the truth. Make sure they all know that the land on which the buildings will soon stand once had private homes, homes that rang with the laughter of children and that have now been seized by a greedy developer for profit. Make it known to all that a developer that can stoop so low as to profit on such unjust seizure of private property will likely do so again; and at all costs they must be pursued and the truth announced to all they would do business with lest they seize more private homes for their greedy ends.
"It's Mabo, it's the vibe...." -- The Castle
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Hardly. The position of the conservatives on the court (who opposed this decision) is that this clearly opens the way for "the rich to own all the businesses and property" precisely because "we're so close to the rich, government, and businesses all being the same."
To quote from the minority opinion of Sandra Day O'Connor, under the majority ruling:
"Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory."
Adding that: "The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more."
So, in fact, what the conservative judges worry about is exactly the possibility that this will be used to unfairly benefit the rich.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
This statement is factually incorrect. Bork was nominated by Reagan, not Bush.
In Arlington, TX, the voters approved by I think 52%-48% a plan to increase sales taxes to attract the Dallas Cowboys from the nearby city of Irving.
....
Guess what neighborhoods they chose to buy out the land for the new stadium? Yup, poor areas of town.
The city will buy the land and lease it to the Cowboys.
Anti-Cowboy groups and affected landowners were all hoping the Supremes would make a sane ruling in this case. Alas, they did not.
Here's the kicker - since the land will be city-owned, there will be no city property taxes, no school property taxes, no county property taxes, no hospital-district property taxes, no
The rest of the taxpayers get to make up the difference.