Posted on 06/24/2005 6:53:25 AM PDT by jim_trent
If nothing was unique or significant about this case, the SCOTUS wouldn't have granted certiorari.
Obviously, the decision is a significant broadening of gov. power at the expense of individual rights to private property ownership. In addition, considering the actual facts, i.e., no blight, middle-class families (at least one of whom was born in her residence and has lived there for several decades while married), corporate giant (Pfizer) beneficiary, and the realities of the prospects for abuse, people have every right to be outraged.
I hate real esate agents and thier buddies land appraisal agents.
Its all back room crap. Politics has grown to feed off us. If there was a bigger waste its our judicial system. I believe you should not be allowed to be a judge if you ever had been a lawyer.
Then don't make them.
Make your case with the facts at issue or quit the field.
I made my case you quit the field. Rightfully so, I might add since you don't have a constitutional leg to stand on.
They've had the right to take your land for the public good, not to take it and give it to private developer. When Donald Trump built his TAJ casino in Atlantic City he had to pay 2x to 3x market to aquire some holdout properties. Now he gets to pay market price and take it. Government reserves the right to condemn property in order to give it to whoever will pay the most in taxes on it.
Interesting post and you point directly at the problem to be addressed: what is the public interest when economic development is the goal driving the use of eminent domain proceedings?
Both the dissenters and the majority looked at this issue.
The dissenters complained that the majority had not provided any guidelines for evaluating economic development eminent domain condemnations to ensure they were in the "public interest."
The majority view was that there was just too much variety in the possible projects that governments undertake to make up a comprehensive set of guidelines that would be applicable in every case. They choose to rely on open and publically reviewable governmental planning processes to identify appropriate projects and on the established judicial protocols and procedures for handling the eminent domain cases as they arise. (And let's remember that there were 115 parcels of land in the project and all but 11 landowners(some of them related to others) choose to accept the development authority's offer without court action. So the use of eminent domain proceeding was a last, not a first, resort.) So it seems to me that the majority wanted to keep things as simple and as local as possible.
At the end of it's opinion, the majority also strongly invited States to impose stricter standards on this type of economic development activity if they wanted to. So action on this issue now really resides at the State (and lower) level(s) of government.
So if you really think it is a good idea for 11 property owners to be able to disrupt or entirely derail an economic development project that might bring hundreds or thousands of jobs back into a community that has be economically depressed for 15 or more years, then get your state legislature to outlaw the use of eminent domain proceedings in these instances and then be prepared to live with the consequences. The court is saying that you just can't use the 5th Amendment takings clause anymore to roadblock efforts and make a federal case out of it. (No or unjust compensation notwithstanding.)
One with lots of monkeys that vote the bananas are an entitlement.
Yes, it is a hard and painful thing to do (or even just watch). But there are times when land (which you can't just go out to a store and buy more of) just has to be reused for the public good. But it is not something to be done flippantly and that's why it has to be a complicated, procedure ladened, public process.
Bit of both actually. There are still convictions, just not as many as there ought to be.
Fight back by taking the majority's suggestion to make eminent domain takings for economic development more restrictive by changing the appropriate laws at the State level or amending state constitutions to prohibit it. But be prepared to live with the consequences when someone becomes unreasonably stubborn.
Definition of Eminent Domain
"The government wants it. The government takes it."
It's really that simple.
You are entitled to your opinion. It is not mine.
Public use, not private use with public benefits. The 14th Amend. was enacted to prevent the States from trampling the rights of it's citizens. In particular, it's minority citizens. The SCOTUS failed to do so here and left some citizens with less property right than the feds recognize.
Seems the 14th can be used only to protect abortion, porn, cornholin', flag burning and other such things. It's not used to protect rights and Freedom at the expense of socialism. This case protects the fascist version.
Details please. Yeah, I've had a case of having all the justice I could stand to afford.
Goodbye.
Every Public Works department I am aware of has general plans for the next 40 or 50 years based on projected growth. They are in the public domain and are available for the asking (and more and more are being posted on the Internet so you don't even have to ask).
I have never understood anyone who bought a nice little house on a two-lane road a few miles from the city limits of a fast growing city and expect it to never change. Its to old "I have mine so I want to keep everyone else from getting the same thing" syndrome. It is BS, pure and simple.
Anyone who doesn't plan for growth in the future will get run over by it. And they deserve to.
It happened on my property. The owner of the dog didn't have any money, so she sued me.
I was having the same thoughts as YDR and applaud his posting and your reply. In essence, what you are saying (as posted above) is this case is a prime example of federalism at work. Agree/disagree, expound at your pleasure.
If you agree that this is an example of federalism, please expand your thoughts on how far that will really take us in this particular discussion on eminent domain. IMO, federalism is currently a dying concept because of activist courts that create new "findings and penumbras" on their own whim. Along with some other posters in this thread, I see mostly bad tidings here and don't really see an out with action at the state level as proposed by the SCOTUS opinion.
TIA for your response...I appreciate your participation in the thread thus far.
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