Posted on 06/23/2005 8:07:27 AM PDT by Stew Padasso
Supreme Court rules cities may seize homes
HOPE YEN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights.
Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.
"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including - but by no means limited to - new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
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.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
She 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.
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.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
Driving down the value of property is part of the goal of Socialists. If what you own is worth nothing, then the only incentive is to please the rulers who provide sustenance.
Real estate now, personal possessions and finances next.
Are you saying that the first and most important question we should ask any candidate is where they stand on this ruling and what will they do to get it set aside?
The reversal of the Poletown decision by the Michigan SC is an excellent read in judicial restraint and fealty to the Michigan constitution.
Here's a piece of it -
“We overrule Poletown,” the Court wrote, “in order to vindicate our constitution, protect the people’s property rights and preserve the legitimacy of the judicial branch as the expositor, not creator, of fundamental law.”
If you want to read about a court that respects private property and a state constitution, this is it.
A bribe is no longer necessary. Simply appealing to local zoning boards, etc. will suffice. Few will say no when they hear the taxes to be gleaned.
This is part of the fallout of the Socialist trap we've already fallen into. Elected officials increase taxes to redistribute wealth to buy votes. Now they can confiscate homes as part of their Socialism since it increases tax revenue and gives them additional taxes to redistribute.
This act has increased the profit of both developers and conservationists whose livelihood is dependent upon taking other peoples' property.
That sounds suspicious. Why would they destroy the tax base and then their schools and prisons would be without funding?
The black, ugly nub of the problem. Astute summary.
Not choosy? LOL !
Sound like this case is going to have some strange bedfellows. Note this entry from DU:
smb (234 posts) Thu Jun-23-05 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #213
219. Oh, Great....
It was the liberal judges who voted 'yes' to this. This scares me to no end!
Yep. Now, the Pubbies have the argument "we gotta get our judges on the bench or else your city council can steal your house any time they want".
The betrayal of the majority in this case leaves the Democrats with no answer to that argument.
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There is hope for our Republic!
I'm saying that the first and most important question we should ask any candidate is his or her understanding of the Constitutional limits on government power. That goes for state and local officials too.
I am curious: How many agencies in how many states have you worked with?
Eminent domain is a great field. Everybody gets paid.
Not everyone in this country is smart enough or rich enough to go blithely hiring lawyers. I believe that there will be elderly folks out there will get one of these notices, particularly those living on family farms that don't generate much tax money compared to a Super China-Mart, and some of them will have their land taken for pennies on the dollar.
If this doesn't bring home the seriousness of judicial nominees to the American people, then I don't know what else will, especially in this age when American home ownership is higher than ever. This ought to wake up many to the detriment of the Dems.
FYI and to show other people that there are political remedies. (You are filled with common sense) :-) -
The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that local and state governments may not seize private property under their eminent domain power and give it to another private user.
In other words, the local government can’t take your home, land or business and give it to a strip mall, a car dealership, a high-tech company or any other private property owner.
The unanimous ruling on July 30, 2004 returned common sense to private property ownership, reined in political hacks stealing property to reward friends or well-heeled connections and built a clear wall between the legal concepts of private property and public use.
“We overrule Poletown,” the Court wrote, “in order to vindicate our constitution, protect the people’s property rights and preserve the legitimacy of the judicial branch as the expositor, not creator, of fundamental law.”
This statement indicates that Michigan’s highest court has rediscovered its constitutional and traditional role as interpreter of law, not creative writer of law.
As long as you are forced to pay taxes on your property, it ain't your property...Yer just rentin...
"This ruling goes WAY beyond simply allowing for SOME purposes of eviction. It goes all the way to allowing eviction for ANY purpose."
You are so correct.
I think we need to have a municipality seize a Supreme Court Justice's home to build a strip mall. THEN you'd see this crap come to a screeching halt.
I scanned this SC decision, but here, I believe, is a key phrase:
Not only was the “use by the public” test difficult to administer .... but it proved to be impractical given the diverse and always evolving needs of society. Accordingly, when this Court began applying the Fifth Amendment to the States at the close of the 19th century, it embraced the broader and more natural interpretation of public use as “public purpose.”
Public purpose, of course, is nothing more than the American version of the Marxist "common good." Individual rights are now trumped by the interests of the common good, as we see it, says the court.
The courts, essentially, held a constitutional convention and changed the phrase "public use" into "public purpose."
Public purpose can mean anything, at any time, to anyone. Thus, private property has ceased to exist, as it can now be taken by government for any reason as defined by "public purpose."
This court decision can be boiled down to one sentence: "Welcome to the USSA - United Soviet Socialist America."
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