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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...
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This runs so counter to the concept of using eminent domain for the public good that I could scream. I guess there's not much chance Congress would consider limiting eminent domain to the more 'traditional' uses like roads, schools, etc. Sigh.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
I've posted other comments here about this, but here's the basic review:
The city government claims they seized the property for economic development, as part of a larger plan. Sure, the property is going to be turned over to a commercial developer, but it's "public use" of the land because of the larger economic development plan.
The state courts: Well, the city says their main reason for doing it is public use, not to benefit Pfizer, so it must be public use!
The supreme courts: We'll let the state courts worry about this. They said it's public use, so it probably is. Therefore, it's OK for the city to seize the land.
This is not the building of new roads, this is not the elimination of blight, this is a real estate development deal, and people are losing their houses over it. Does this frighten anybody but me?
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Funny enough, the dissenting judges appear to mostly be conservative in nature from what I've read of their rulings.
And in an ironic twist, David Souter _is_ a Bush-appointed judge - Bush the elder, that is.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Un-freaking-believable.
The minority opinion of today's decision is pretty much the group I normally harbor such incredible contempt. And YET, today it is so obvious they were the ones making the correct decision. I am stroking out just trying to grasp this contradiction to my world view.
How do you go to a citizen, a property owner, someone who as poured his sweat and portion of his life into obtaining and maintaining his land, and then tell him he is to be evicted because some rich guy, or some soulless corporation has decided to take his property over???
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Strangely enough, this SCOTUS ruling could be a potential boon for local democracy and activism in the United States.
If indeed the ramifications are not "random", as Justice O'Connor put it (and I think she's right), then what we'll see are pitched local battles taking place across the entire nation, with commercial developers vs., well, the people. This may finally be the tipping point that wakes everyone up and sparks a vast new wave of civic activism. After all, the "local authorities" are democratically elected, and if they go off the deep end with seizing private property for pure commercial interests, it won't be long before people get out their pitchforks, so to speak.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
"I was a conservative. Then they changed what `conservative' was. Now what I am isn't conservative, and what is `conservative' seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you!"
-- Ford
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
If it's my house, my business, my whatever, it's mine. Not yours. Not New London's. Not whomever else's. I worked for it. Mine. It's utterly irrelevant how much you're prepared to pay for it if I don't want to sell. It is black and white.
You want to build something else? Fine. Go take over the city council's properties. Leave mine alone. This is theft, pure and simple. There;'s precious little difference between this and Cuba's "nationalization" of property after the revolution.
You wait and see. There will now be a LOT of cases where governments decide to "streamline" the process of changing their cities, counties, states, or whatever just to please whoever's in charge, or the local big business they want to buddy up to.
It won't usually involve $17M/acre. It will be backed up with guns if necessary. And it could just as easily be you as anyone else.
Based purely on this one ruling, those judges should be (at a minimum) in public stocks the rest of their lives. Preferably on a flatbed trailer so they can be toted around the country for everyone to laugh at, maybe throw a few tomatoes. I wouldn't have a problem with flogging, either.
But while we're at it, throw in the New London governmental morons who started this.
Ford cannot credibly be described as a conservative.
It depends on how you define "conservative" as the meaning is changing, has changed from previous definitions. The same with "liberal". Thomas Jefferson's and Thomas Paine's "Liberal" was someone who believed in a small and limited government, but today it's closer to socialism or big government. Meanwhile conservative back then believed in a big and powerful federal government. Conservatives are still for big government, the only difference between conservatives and liberals today is in what part of government is big. The only political party today with the classical liberal outlook of a small and limited government is the Libertarian Party.
FalconShould there be a Law?
When I was 8 years old after a long legal battle the CT state department of transportation eminent domained my Family's land and many of our neighbors. They wanted to build a highway that didn't need to be built and for which they had been expressly told by the department of environmental protection that they could never have the permits to build. Among other things we had a river in our back yard, 90% of the land was considered wetlands, and the property abutted Nathan Hale State Forest ( I'll point out some of the land for which was sold to the state at a deep discount by my grandfather who was/is an avid conservationist) My parents were given $180,000 for a house that was appraised at $280,000. Beyond the value of the property my entire extended family lived right in the same area (grandfather was a farmer who gave his land to his children) My aunt and her family lived across the street, and my uncle and his family lived next door. Needless to say my family was scattered after they took their houses too. Today more than 17 years later the highway was never built and the house which my father built with his own hands on land his father gave him sits abandoned. I hope the people in New London stand their ground against the bulldozers. And when the first officer comes to physically remove them from their land I'll be crying tears of joy if they blow his head off with a shotgun.