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Statement of Tom McClintock on SCOTUS Decision in Kelo (To introduce Constitutional Amendment)
Hon. Tom McClintock | June 23, 2005 | Hon. Tom McClintock

Posted on 06/23/2005 1:54:47 PM PDT by calif_reaganite

Senator Tom McClintock released the following statement on the United States Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut.

McClintock to introduce an amendment to the California Constitution to restore the original meaning of the property protections in the Bill of Rights

“Today the U.S. Supreme Court broke the social compact by striking down one of Americans’ most fundamental rights. Their decision nullifies the Constitution’s Public Use clause and opens an era when the rich and powerful may use government to seize the property of ordinary citizens for private gain.”

“The responsibility now falls on the various states to reassert and restore the property rights of their citizens. I am today announcing my intention to introduce an amendment to the California Constitution to restore the original meaning of the property protections in the Bill of Rights. This amendment will require that the government must either own the property it seizes through eminent domain or guarantee the public the legal right to use the property. In addition, it will require that such property must be restored to the original owner or his rightful successor, if the government ceased to use it for the purpose of the eminent domain action.”

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TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; eminentdomain; freedom; judges; kelo; mcclintock; privateproperty; propertyrights; scotus; tyranny; tyrrany
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To: Jim 0216

Love Tom McClintock.

America needs him as President. We need a REAL Conservative.

Perhaps Arnolds win in California was America's Gain.

Draft Tom in 2008!


141 posted on 06/23/2005 4:45:25 PM PDT by HonestConservative (Bless our Servicemen!)
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To: Now_is_The_Time

McClintock is just trying to score some political points. This decision is the best thing to happen for his career in a long time.

----

I hope you're as suspicious of all politicians words and actions.

Welcome to FR, newbie.


142 posted on 06/23/2005 4:47:01 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... The War on Terrorism is the ultimate 'faith-based' initiative.)
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

We need Constitutionalist judges now!
-----
Moreso than most realize. The socialists have been targeting the judiciary as their tool for absolute power and control, and so far, they are winning the battles -- McCain-Feingold (which Bush should have put in the trash can) and now this -- based on this disasterous precendent, any government can basically take your real and personal property at will.

Toto, are we in the Soviet Union yet??


143 posted on 06/23/2005 4:57:32 PM PDT by EagleUSA
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To: calif_reaganite
We need an amendment to the Federal Constitution to settle this. What was done by the supreme court is unthinkable. We have reached a point where the courts are far too powerful.

It would only be fitting if Justice Kennedy's property was targeted for a shopping mall.

144 posted on 06/23/2005 5:04:58 PM PDT by KoRn
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To: HonestConservative

Please...where do we sign?


145 posted on 06/23/2005 5:05:14 PM PDT by Jim W N
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To: Coleus
Doesn't the 5th amendment allow for eminent domain?

It does. What has happened in this case is that many citizens, including the conservative minority of the Supreme Court, believe the liberal Supreme Court majority has so broadly interpreted that power that it has now become the means whereby government may forcefully evict a disfavored and less powerful private citizen and give his home and land to a favored, powerful private citizen simply because government thinks the favored, powerful private citizen has a better idea how to make a private profit on the property.

Many people sense a line has been crossed that should have remained sacrosanct.

146 posted on 06/23/2005 5:06:48 PM PDT by JCEccles
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To: libstripper
In the past Congress has interpreted this as meaning a Federal judge, including SCOTUS justices, can only be impeached if caught committing a felony, a standard that's more applicable to the President, who can only be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Probably VERY INCIDENTAL to your point, but I must correct what apparently is a mis-impression on your part, or may be mis-interpreted by others...

"High crimes and misdemeanors" does not refer to a felony or other "high-level" crime. The meaning of the phrase is A crime committed by a HIGH LEVEL OFFICIAL, not the level of the crime. --- Or stated another way, "a crime or misdemeanor committed by a high level public official".

147 posted on 06/23/2005 5:22:45 PM PDT by AFPhys ((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))
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To: calif_reaganite

It's weak, but good luck. It is more important to feel good than to be effective.


148 posted on 06/23/2005 5:25:27 PM PDT by RightWhale (withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
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To: maine-iac7
And the difference will be?

The farmer opened the barn door but didn't demand the cows go out - think they'll stay in the barn or head for those green - and free - neighbors pastures, now that the fences have been torn down?


Ummm, I was replying to someone who said that a California Constitutional amendment that was stricter than this USSC ruling would not stand up in court. My point was that it will stand because the ruling does not demand that states seize homes this way, it merely says they can. That point is correct.
149 posted on 06/23/2005 5:29:52 PM PDT by Arkinsaw
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To: calcowgirl; Grampa Dave
I'm sorry, I got here late and haven't even read the thread yet, but I'm dying to ask Grampa Dave who violently defends Prop 13, and rightly so, what he thinks this will do to property owners, especially Seniors, who own improved property, like a primary residence in the path of something that would help ANY local government increase their "revenue stream."

Even though they would pay fair market value and even moving costs, what happens to this elderly couple as a vested Prop 13 tax payer on the new property? The exemption goes entirely away, right? Time for another "Tax Revolt" against the Supreme Stupids!!! (if you ask me... which, of course no one will, right?)

150 posted on 06/23/2005 5:31:07 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Arnold Schwarzenrenegger is Cauleeforneeah's Greenievenator!!! He's infected with GANG-GREEN!!!)
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To: calif_reaganite; Grampa Dave; calcowgirl; tubebender; dalereed; NormsRevenge; ...

Impeach the 5 Supreme Court Commies!!! Seize their lifetime jobs!!! Don't let 'em help local CA local governments defeat Prop 13 without a fight!!!


151 posted on 06/23/2005 5:36:03 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Arnold Schwarzenrenegger is Cauleeforneeah's Greenievenator!!! He's infected with GANG-GREEN!!!)
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To: Now_is_The_Time
It isn't meant to. McClintock is just trying to score some political points. This decision is the best thing to happen for his career in a long time.

Yes, it is meant to, and it will stand up in court. The USSC ruling gives states/cities the ability to seize property in this way, but that does not prohibit California from deciding not to. If California decides not to, via Constitutional Amendement, nobody is going to force them to.
152 posted on 06/23/2005 5:38:30 PM PDT by Arkinsaw
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To: RockinRight

Yes! And we shoulda impeached Earl Warren before things got this out of hand!!! He started all this crappola!!!


153 posted on 06/23/2005 5:38:47 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Arnold Schwarzenrenegger is Cauleeforneeah's Greenievenator!!! He's infected with GANG-GREEN!!!)
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To: Cinnamon Girl; Cboldt; Southack; Lazamataz; doug from upland; Jim Robinson; All

"Do you think the liberals on the court would have felt the same way if it had been WALMART that wanted to take people's homes?"



RHETORICAL QUESTION OF THE WEEK!


154 posted on 06/23/2005 5:44:06 PM PDT by The Spirit Of Allegiance (SAVE THE BRAINFOREST! Boycott the RED Dead Tree Media & NUKE the DNC Class Action Temper Tantrum!)
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To: GaltMeister

"The People need to take their country back from the thieves in DC."

With respect, I think you are right, but just how will that ever happen? The ballot box? Has not done much good lately.


155 posted on 06/23/2005 5:50:17 PM PDT by alarm rider
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To: Dead Dog
"Give us 10 more years..."

Horse hockey!!! We could all be dead by then!!!

156 posted on 06/23/2005 5:52:47 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Arnold Schwarzenrenegger is Cauleeforneeah's Greenievenator!!! He's infected with GANG-GREEN!!!)
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To: RockinRight; calif_reaganite; RKV; ConservativeMan55; redgolum; janetgreen; justshutupandtakeit; ...

As I understand it, the homes that the government wanted to seize were river front homes. Not exactly a blighted area. Just imagine what good the government in Kaleefornia can do now with all those fabulous oceanfront homes owned by people like Barbara Streisand. Oh joy, the wonderful TAX producing, JOBS producing projects the government could create by seizing all the homes of the wealthy. HEE HEE HEE


157 posted on 06/23/2005 5:55:22 PM PDT by Enterprise (Coming soon from Newsweek: "Fallujah - we had to destroy it in order to save it.")
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To: RockinRight
Can we IMPEACH SCOTUS justices???
There are many things that can be done.
1. Yes, Justices of the Supreme court can be impeached based solely on decision. I believe that the only time this occured was the impeachment of John Marshall over the Marbury decision.
2. Congress can also change the scope of the courts review.
3. Congress and the President can point out that as co-equal branches of government, they also can interpret the Constitution. They could authorize the National Guard to protect the property.
158 posted on 06/23/2005 5:58:53 PM PDT by rmlew (Copperheads and Peaceniks beware! Sedition is a crime.)
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To: traviskicks; Carry_Okie; NormsRevenge; tubebender; hedgetrimmer; forester; marsh2; dalereed; ...
CA State Constitution:

ARTICLE 1. (New Section Adopted by the people 11/5/1974)

SECTION 1. (Inalienable Rights)

All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.

159 posted on 06/23/2005 6:02:03 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Arnold Schwarzenrenegger is Cauleeforneeah's Greenievenator!!! He's infected with GANG-GREEN!!!)
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To: calif_reaganite
We are no longer free, folks! Tyrants in our judiciary have stolen our most basic rights, and our legislators are complicit by their apathy or their collusion. The repeal the 5th Amendment today by Leftists on the Supreme Court was the final nail in the coffin of Liberty. To fully understand what we have lost, carefully read the following . . .

James Madison on Property
29 March 1792

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

160 posted on 06/23/2005 6:02:13 PM PDT by PhilipFreneau ("The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." -- Psalms 19:1)
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