Free Republic

It happened late in January on the FOX network's Hannity and Colmes program, with the pretty blonde, Estrich, in her abrasive voice subbing for the absent abrasive Colmes. The subject was eminent domain, a process by which a government "condemns" private property and takes it for "public" use. Until recently, I had never seen it used for any other purpose than to make way for a road or a public development of some kind. A park, a facility to keep equipment, like fire trucks, in a central location. A place to put a school. Those sorts of things. Then, the...

Date: January 20, 2006 From: Jerry Falwell EMINENT DOMAIN KNOCKING ON CHURCH’S DOOR I learned this week that a small Baptist church in Oklahoma is at risk of losing its place of worship because it sits on a site where city leaders want to build a shopping plaza. This eminent domain business is getting serious. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kelo ruling last year, we are facing a brand new ballgame in terms of private property and what that term really means. For the Rev. Roosevelt Gildon, pastor of the Centennial Baptist Church in Sand Springs, Okla., eminent domain is...

After more than a decade fighting county officials and developers over a Midvale shopping center, Pearl Meibos and her family have finally come out on top. The Utah Supreme Court sided with the family this week in a fight over the Family Center shopping complex, which boxed in her family's century-old homestead with little room to spare. For shoppers, the ruling means the Ross Dress for Less and Bed, Bath & Beyond stores on Fort Union Boulevard could be partially torn down. Some of the Wal-Mart parking lot also could be torn out. For members of Meibos' Croxford family -...

OAKLAND, Calif. — Revelli Tire ( search) has been a family-owned business in Oakland, Calif., for 56 years. But if action by the city council remains on course, the tire store will have to find a new home or go the way of the dinosaur. In July, using the power of eminent domain, the Oakland City Council evicted John Revelli from his store and locked the doors. The council's argument: One landowner should not impede the progress of a city on the move. "I am being forced to give up and give away all I have worked for all these...

Union Township, N.J. -- Carol Segal has a problem: He wants to build townhouses on the six acres of land he owns in New Jersey's Union Township and has contracted with a developer to build 100 townhouses there. But the township government wants to develop the property themselves, and - incredibly - they have voted to take his land through the eminent domain process and let a local developer with political connections do the job. "They want to steal my land," Segal told the Newark Star-Ledger. "What right do they have when I intend to do the exact same thing...

Real Angry Over Real Estate Why a recent Supreme Court ruling has lots of homeowners hot under the collar By Silla Brush 10/10/05 Stan Dunn and his wife, Barbara, had just sold their home in California and were about to retire to the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga this spring when they heard the rumblings: A developer might tear down their new home--and more than 300 other nearby houses--in order to build a new complex of apartments, townhouses, and businesses to eliminate blight and boost the economy. And while town officials are excited at the prospect, the Dunns say they have...

Lumberton OKs road's location close to house LUMBERTON - In a unanimous 7-0 vote Monday night, the Lumberton City Council approved the proposed location of a connector road that, when built, will run within 50 feet of a paralyzed man's bedroom. "The action plan we passed tonight is part of the design to connect subdivisions to subdivisions in accordance with a city ordinance," Surratt said. "It will help move traffic east to west in our city...." There are four choices now for drivers "He may not get to go boating or fishing. That's his piece of land," Linda Rich said....

Judgment day on eminent domain The state Senate Judiciary Committee today likely will vote on several measures that would curb alarming abuses of eminent domain by California cities and redevelopment agencies. Local governments routinely take property from homeowners and small-business owners and transfer it to large corporations that promise a huge tax windfall to cities that are willing to trample on property rights. A U.S. Supreme Court decision in June - Kelov. City of New London(Conn.) - ruled in favor of such takings, but the public backlash has spurred efforts in most states, including California, to put some limits on...

The Constitution Party invites you to its Fall 2005 National Meeting in Columbus, Ohio on September 16th and 17. Party leaders from across the country will be there and you won't want to miss this event! Special Guest Speaker Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center will be with us to discuss Property Rights and Eminent Domain. Addresses by the party's 2004 standard bearers, Michael Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin, along with a fine list of other outstanding speakers will inform and inspire us all. For more details, visit: http://www.constitutionparty.com/view_events.php Encourage your friends, family and others to come to Columbus so...

Chuck Douglas: 'New' Justice Souter is not the one I remember By CHUCK DOUGLAS Guest Commentary THIS MONTH marks the 20th anniversary of the New Hampshire Supreme Court decision titled Merrill vs. City of Manchester. That case dealt with the question of public use in exactly the same context as did the recent Kelo vs. New London case in the United States Supreme Court. Justice David Souter sat on both cases but came to totally different conclusions.

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers, spurred by a recent US Supreme Court ruling, is pushing a measure designed to curb the power of Massachusetts cities and towns to take private property to make way for private economic development. [...] Under the measure authored by Representative Bradley H. Jones Jr., the House Republican leader, municipalities would be prevented from taking private property for private development except in cases where the property is ''a substandard, decadent, or blighted open area" under state law. Geoff Beckwith of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which lobbies for cities and towns, says the law would handcuff...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Internet's key oversight agency has quietly authorized Iraq's new government to manage its own domain name, allowing for the restoration of Internet addresses ending in ".iq." The suffix had been in limbo after the 2002 federal indictment of the Texas-based company that was running it on charges of funneling money to a member of the Islamic extremist group Hamas. InfoCom Corp., which sold computers and Web services in the Middle East and got the ".iq" assignment in 1997, was convicted in April along with its chief executive and two brothers. The board of the Internet...

CRITICISM of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Kelo vs. New London, which permitted the Connecticut city to seize several homes to clear the way for a proposed economic revitalization plan, has become personal. According to an Associated Press article published last week and an article in the July 16 edition of the Union Leader, “people from across the country are joining a campaign to seize Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter’s farmhouse to build a luxury hotel.” Justice Souter did not write the decision in Kelo, but he joined Justice Stevens’ majority opinion. The campaign to seize his property...

CENTER ANNOUNCES CREATION OF 'PROPERTY RIGHTS FIRST' COALITION, CITES NEED TO STOP 'KELO II' by MONTANA NEWS Washington, D.C.--Today, the American Policy Center joined several organizations concerned with property rights to help form “Property Rights First!,” a coalition designed to push property rights to the center of the debate over the Endangered Species Act. APC is warning that draft legislation released by Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) titled “The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005” (TESRA 2005) would do more harm than good to American property owners. The Center has dubbed Pombo’s draft bill “Kelo II,” as it represents...

SALISBURY - Rowan County officials paid private investigators more than $23,000 over the past five years to search for the writer of anonymous letters criticizing county spending. According to the private eyes, that person turned out to be one of the county's own. The Board of Commissioners never discussed or approved spending for the investigation at any formal meeting. Only County Manager Tim Russell, his assistants and possibly two commissioners' chairmen knew of the investigation, The Salisbury Post reported. Russell said he hired the agency because of the letters' threatening tone. The investigation was revealed after Kiker Investigations issued a...

July 28, 2005 - Connecticut Voters Say 11 - 1 Stop Eminent Domain, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Connecticut voters say 89 - 8 percent that the state legislature should pass laws limiting the use of eminent domain, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Republican voters support such limits 91 - 8 percent, as Democrats favor limits 85 - 11 percent and independent voters want limits 94 - 5 percent. A total of 61 percent of Connecticut voters "disagree somewhat" or "disagree strongly" with the traditional use of eminent domain to take private property for public uses such as...

Hillary Clinton, at first blush, would appear to have little in common with big-screen bombshells like Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts, let alone such iconic sportsmen as the late Vince Lombardi. But as politicians go, New York's junior senator is larger than life. And like each of these superstars, she has seen her good name hijacked by so-called "cybersquatters." On July 13, Clinton finally launched photo: hillaryclinton.com, having wrested it from the notorious Italian Web operator who originally owned it. She's using the domain name as the home of her re-election bid next year. "This new website is a reflection...

Editorial - Only Fools Rush In - Information meeting on eminent domain this week can start a thoughtful debate on the subject. Published on 7/25/2005 On Thursday, legislators will begin reviewing Connecticut's eminent domain laws. The proceeding before the Planning and Development and Judiciary committees is not a formal hearing, but is described as an information session. This meeting will be a good place to set the tone for the state's deliberations on this matter, raised when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city in the Kelo case and reaffirmed the practice of using eminent domain to...

Eminent domain protesters picket Sunday in front of the home of David Goebel, chief operating officer of the New London Development Corporation. By PATRICIA DADDONA Day Staff Writer, Waterford Published on 7/25/2005 New London — Eminent domain activists picketed Sunday evening in front of the home of Fort Trumbull redevelopment leader David M. Goebel as he hosted a dinner party in his back yard. The hourlong march, marked by chants that began, “We won't go,” and ended with “How low can you go?” was the first of many that Coalition to Save Fort Trumbull members and supporters say they intend...

Welcome to Hotel Souter? Eminent domain ruling triggers backlash By BEVERLEY WANG Associated Press Writer WEARE, N.H. Near the foot of an unmarked, dead-end dirt road sits a humble, mud-colored farmhouse. A sign on a mailbox jutting from a tilted post spells "SOUTER." Through the years, U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter has stuck to his family's home in the central New Hampshire town of Weare, population 8,500. A bachelor, the 65-year-old Souter has lived for decades on the 8-acre property, undisturbed among neighbors whose yards are strewn with rusting farm equipment and old pickup trucks. The house, more than...