Posted on 06/23/2005 7:30:08 AM PDT by Helmholtz
U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.
Don't have time to read all the responses on this thread, so if I repeat what someone else has pointed out, my apologies.
This ruling is further proof that a majority on the current court are more in touch with 'international law' than they are with the fundemental principles that made this country what it is.
And everyone needs a reminder that the current court is loaded, 7-2, with 'justices' that were appointed by Republican Presidents.
A good thing to remember when judging the quality of soon-to-be-coming nominees.
Thanks, I was able to find it.
>:-O !!!
I'm sure your guess would be right on, or should I say left on?
I don't buy the "private development creates jobs and tax revenues" b.s. either. A brief jaunt a block away from the casinos will disabuse you of the local economic benefits myth. And the casinos are now laying off by the hundreds, now that they've got the automatic cash redemption ticket machines.
Interesting.
Syllabus of opinion here -
http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-108.ZS.html
The DU thread on this ruling reads exactly like this one.
Just damn.
Expand on that sometime.
Well, this is it.
I'm not attacking you personally.
But in this case, the ballot box IS available. The court was not ruling that an individual could take your house no matter what your legislature says.
It was saying that if the local legislature decides to do this, it can do so.
In this particular incident, all that was necessary was for enough people in the city to rise up and vote out the council that approved this deal, and it could be stopped.
But a majority of the people WANTED this to happen. They were HAPPY with it, or too stupid to know better.
I think it is important for all of us in these debates to distinguish between cases where we want the government to be allowed to work the majority will but the Supreme Court says individual rights are more important (LIKE, FOR EXAMPLE, ABORTION) and cases where we want the Supreme Court to keep the government from doing things to individuals but the Supreme Court says it is up to the majority of voters (LIKE, FOR EXAMPLE, THIS RULING, or the MARIJUANA RULING).
There are principled constitutional issues in both cases, but they are not the same problem (except at the highest level of "misinterpreting the constitution").
I would also argue that, for a strict federalist, wouldn't we want the US court to say that federal constitutional rights restrict the FEDERAL government, but not our local governments?
"It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would refuse to leave his home, even if bulldozers showed up. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."
Scott Bullock, an attorney for the Institute for Justice representing the families, added: "A narrow majority of the court simply got the law wrong today and our Constitution and country will suffer as a result."
At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.
Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, a former mayor and city council member who voted in favor of eminent domain, said the decision "means a lot for New London's future."
"I am just so pleased to know that what we did was right," he said. "We can go ahead with development now."
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
O'Connor was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub.
More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs. Last month, the Pentagon also announced plans to close the U.S. Naval Submarine Base, one of the city's largest employers, which would eliminate thousands of jobs.
The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.
City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
And just what would that do? Absolutely nothing.
Guess the only option is for each of us to make our property so unacceptable that none would want it. Let me see..........
I will expect the dems to go postal over this. Don't they resent the corporations - surely they will not be in agreement with a corporation moving out the poor for their own profit. Maybe it will be time to become a dem.
In fact, I've got property I've been paying taxes on for years that does not even have a road to it, no water, electricity. Guess I will just quit paying those taxes and let the "economic developers" have it.
For the first time since I have joined FR, I AM SPEECHLESS!
There is simply nothing I can say.....my mind is numb.....as I finally realize that we have become financial communists!
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Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1 KENNEDY, J., concurring SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 04–108
_________________ SUSETTE KELO, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. CITY OF NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF CONNECTICUT [June 23, 2005]
JUSTICE KENNEDY, concurring.
I join the opinion for the Court and add these further observations.
This Court has declared that a taking should be upheld as consistent with the Public Use Clause, U. S. Const., Amdt. 5., as long as it is “rationally related to a conceivable public purpose.” Hawaii Housing Authority v. Mid-kiff, 467 U. S. 229, 241 (1984); see also Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954). This deferential standard of review echoes the rational-basis test used to review economic regulation under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, see, e.g., FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U. S. 307, 313–314 (1993); Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483 (1955). The determination that a rational-basis standard of review is appropriate does not, however, alter the fact that transfers intended to confer benefits on particular, favored private entities, and with only incidental or pretextual public benefits, are forbidden by the Public Use Clause.
A court applying rational-basis review under the Public Use Clause should strike down a taking that, by a clear showing, is intended to favor a particular private party, with only incidental or pretextual public benefits, just as a court applying rational-basis review under the Equal Protection Clause must strike down a government classifi- of private parties, with only incidental or pretextual public justifications. See Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 446–447, 450 (1985); Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 533–536 (1973). As the trial court in this case was correct to observe, “Where the purpose [of a taking] is economic development and that development is to be carried out by private parties or private parties will be benefited, the court must decide if the stated public purpose—economic advantage to a city sorely in need of it—is only incidental to the benefits that will be confined on private parties of a development plan.” 2 App. to Pet. for Cert. 263. See also ante, at 7.
A court confronted with a plausible accusation of impermissible favoritism to private parties should treat the objection as a serious one and review the record to see if it has merit, though with the presumption that the governments actions were reasonable and intended to serve a public purpose. Here, the trial court conducted a careful and extensive inquiry into “whether, in fact, the development plan is of primary benefit to . . . the developer [i.e., Corcoran Jennison], and private businesses which may eventually locate in the plan area [e.g., Pfizer], and in that regard, only of incidental benefit to the city.” 2 App. to Pet. for Cert. 261. The trial court considered testimony from government officials and corporate officers; id., at 266–271; documentary evidence of communications between these parties, ibid.; respondents’ awareness of New London’s depressed economic condition and evidence corroborating the validity of this concern, id., at 272–273, 278–279; the substantial commitment of public funds by the State to the development project before most of the private beneficiaries were known, id., at 276; evidence that respondents reviewed a variety of development plans and chose a private developer from a group of applicants rather than picking out a particular transferee before hand, id., at 273, 278; and the fact that the other private beneficiaries of the project are still unknown because the office space proposed to be built has not yet been rented, id., at 278.
The trial court concluded, based on these findings, that benefiting Pfizer was not “the primary motivation or effect of this development plan”; instead, “the primary motivation for [respondents] was to take advantage of Pfizer’s presence.” Id., at 276. Likewise, the trial court concluded that “[t]here is nothing in the record to indicate that . . . [respondents] were motivated by a desire to aid [other] particular private entities.” Id., at 278. See also ante, at 7–8. Even the dissenting justices on the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed that respondents’ development plan was intended to revitalize the local economy, not to serve the interests of Pfizer, Corcoran Jennison, or any other private party. 268 Conn. 1, 159, 843 A. 2d 500, 595 (2004) (Zarella, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This case, then, survives the meaningful rational basis review that in my view is required under the Public Use Clause.
Petitioners and their amici argue that any taking justified by the promotion of economic development must be treated by the courts as per se invalid, or at least presumptively invalid. Petitioners overstate the need for such a rule, however, by making the incorrect assumption that review under Berman and Midkiff imposes no meaningful judicial limits on the government’s power to condemn any property it likes. A broad per se rule or a strong presumption of invalidity, furthermore, would prohibit a large number of government takings that have the purpose and expected effect of conferring substantial benefits on the public at large and so do not offend the Public Use Clause.
My agreement with the Court that a presumption of invalidity is not warranted for economic development takings in general, or for the particular takings at issue in this case, does not foreclose the possibility that a more stringent standard of review than that announced in Berman and Midkiff might be appropriate for a more narrowly drawn category of takings. There may be private transfers in which the risk of undetected impermissible favoritism of private parties is so acute that a presumption (rebuttable or otherwise) of invalidity is warranted under the Public Use Clause. Cf. Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498, 549–550 (1998) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment and dissenting in part) (heightened scrutiny for retroactive legislation under the Due Process Clause). This demanding level of scrutiny, however, is not required simply because the purpose of the taking is economic development.
This is not the occasion for conjecture as to what sort of cases might justify a more demanding standard, but it is appropriate to underscore aspects of the instant case that convince me no departure from Berman and Midkiff is appropriate here. This taking occurred in the context of a comprehensive development plan meant to address a serious city-wide depression, and the projected economic benefits of the project cannot be characterized as de mini- mus. The identity of most of the private beneficiaries were unknown at the time the city formulated its plans. The city complied with elaborate procedural requirements that facilitate review of the record and inquiry into the city’s purposes. In sum, while there may be categories of cases in which the transfers are so suspicious, or the procedures employed so prone to abuse, or the purported benefits are so trivial or implausible, that courts should presume an impermissible private purpose, no such circumstances are present in this case.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, I join in the Court’s opinion.
Where these five goats lead... The sheep will follow... Just like "Cows Don't Vote!"
Not that I'm impressed with her, but I'd sure like to see Saundra Day O'Connor's "stinging dissent" posted somewhere on FR, today!!!
Depends on the direction of the power.
You are wrong, this ruling means that if a developer wants to tare down your house to build and sell a nicer house he can do it if he can get city hall to go along. This ruling kills deader then a door nail private property, the government know has total control over all property in the usa. You have zero property rights, zero. You own nothing, you control nothing, piss city hall off and you are gone.
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