Posted on 08/19/2005 8:41:48 PM PDT by FReethesheeples
I was really rooting for Roberts but now have serious reservations.
This analysis, from highly credible & very reputable conservative and libertarian Foundations (Pacific Legal Foundation & Acton Insittute) and publications deserves to be thoroughly examined.
Eminent Domain, Property Rights interest group HEADS UP!
Is there a link to this case decision?
Property rights & Eminent Domain Heads UP.. We don't want a another *Souter* or Kennedy, if Roberts is weak & *Shaky* (squishy to say the least) on Property Rights as the Pacific Legal Foundation says he is. I was for him, but now have grave reservations.
ping!
Link to Pacific Legal Foudnation's analysis which presumably includes case links:
http://www.pacificlegal.org/view_Commentaries.asp?iID=169&sTitle=John+Roberts%3A+A+Supreme+Property+Rights+Disaster+in+the+Making
Very disturbing news. Is there any lawyer left that is willing to uphold the Constitution?
And with that, I must be implacably opposed to Roberts ever serving as a judge in any court, let alone the US Supreme Court.
"In a notorious case in 2002, John Roberts, then a private attorney, argued that several dozen mostly elderly and middle class landowners should not receive a penny in compensation even after a local land use agency had prohibited all use of their property near Lake Tahoe for nearly 30 years.
"In a nutshell, Roberts argued that impacts to property owners must be balanced against the utility of the regulationÖin a way that tilts almost every time in the governmentÒs favor.
"Unfortunately for the landowners, the Court agreed with him.
"Of course, one might argue, Roberts was only doing what he was being paid to do as a high-priced lawyer to represent his client. But why then did he take the case for a Ósubstantially reducedÔ fee as the chief of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency admits?
"More disturbingly, RobertÒs representation of the agency is entirely consistent with the statist philosophy he expressed in a 1978 Harvard Law Review article on land use law. He argued against clear rules that would put boundaries on government power over property in favor of essentially the same government-friendly Óbalancing testÔ that he advocated for in the Lake Tahoe case.
"Even more troubling, he proposed a scheme that would deny money to landowners whose property is taken, using the sort of rhetoric that reminds us of Bill ClintonÒs prevarications over the meaning of the word Óis.Ô Roberts wrote: ÓThe very terms of the fifth amendment, furthermore, are sufficiently flexible to accommodate changing notions of what compensation is Ñjust.ÒÔ
"Put another way, what we have here is not the Óliving constitutionÔ so derided by strict constructionists, but a Ómutating virusÔ infinitely malleable in the service of the state, and undeniably threatening to the rights of property owners. Justice OÒConnor was a swing vote on property; with Roberts it will be the property owners who will be twisting in the wind."
I'm not going to jump on this quite yet. 50000+ pages of work and you are bound to find a few that you disagree with.
I trust Bush on judicial appointees and I trust john roberts.
Mark Levine for SCOTUS!!!
Why, because he holds it legal that Congress can regulate interstate commerce and states can regulate intrastate commerce? It is pretty clear that the Constitution says that Congress can regulate interstate Congress. That puts the onus on us to elect Congresscritters who understand some economics.
Negative externalities not incorporated into the price system are a bitch. Land use is all about economic externalities, positive and negative. Ranting about takings, while ignoring the economic externalities, is well, obtuse. Take another shot. This one misses.
Speechless.
This is a scary fellow.
"I was really rooting for Roberts but now have serious reservations."
I haven't trusted the guy since he gave his nomination acceptance speech and called our Republic a "constitutional democracy."
I saw that as a code word to the "living constitution" folks.
It's not really obtuse, but I'll give you a pass on that.
For someone familiar with the term "externalities," you are surprisingly hasty. Risk associated with uncertainty regarding property rights is an enormous negative externally. In the limit, when property rights are not enforces at all, you arrive at the Hobbesian nightmare.
So, if you want to take into account externalities, then take into account all known ones. As soon as you include that which stems from the owner's uncertainty about his rights to the property in his possession, it will outweigh any other positive ones you may come across.
Make Tories proud --- be consistent.
"Very disturbing news. Is there any lawyer left that is willing to uphold the Constitution?"
I believe one of the last is a FReeper.
Paging the honorable Billybob!
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