[BackInBlack]

I definitely wanted a different outcome...but I'm still a bit torn on whether the federal government has the right to prevent localities from doing that.

[Frank_Discussion]

I'm not torn at all. The US Constitution says "don't do that!" and again, the USSC says "Eh? You say sumptin'"?

[snowsislander]

I definitely wanted a different outcome...but I'm still a bit torn on whether the federal government has the right to prevent localities from doing that.

To me, the Constitution is using plain language to prohibit exactly: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

I agree with Justice Thomas that "public use" means public use, not private use. From page 40 of this pdf compilation from the Supreme Court:

This deferential shift in phraseology enables the Court to hold, against all common sense, that a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a "public use." I cannot agree. If such "economic development" takings are for a "public use," any taking is, and the Court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution, as JUSTICE O'CONNOR powerfully argues in dissent.

[nathanbedford]

You mean you are ambivalent about a federal court (rather than a state court) passing on the constitutionality of the taking

And, implicit in that is, why should the matter turn on a Federal constitutional provision dealing with eminent domain? The feds didn't take anything. So we are asking, how much of the rights contained in the federal constitution restrict the states, and if only some of them, who says which ones? And if only some of them, are they all applied with the same exactitude? Who says?

What do the amendments passed (or forced through) after the civil war have to do with any of this? If the Supremes are deciding all these things since Reconstruction, have they been consistent? Could one say the Supremes have changed political agendas over the decades?

Are the intentions of the founding fathers considered? How about the intentions of the Radical Republicans who crafted the Reconstruction amendments? Or the states which ratified them? Or the Scalawags and Carpetbaggers who ratified them? Did these people intend that the Supremes could apply federal constitutional rights against the states as they saw fit?

Welcome to the bizarre world of con law 101 which was clearly not misnamed.

[Eastbound]

"I definitely wanted a different outcome...but I'm still a bit torn on whether the federal government has the right to prevent localities from doing that."

They don't have the right. They have the DUTY and the POWER to prevent it by virtue of the founding documents.

[ellery]

If SCOTUS were truly concerned with states' rights, they should have and would have simply refused to take the case and left this to the state of Connecticut.

Instead, they took the case, based their decision in part on the US Constitution, and cited cases from across the country. As a result, they've essentially created a precedent for all state courts in the country to follow and unarguably (as we see in this announcement) given elected thieves both inside and outside Connecticut the green light.

Notice that the US Conference of Mayors didn't making this announcement when it was just the CT Supreme Court ruling in favor of eminent domain. The fact that SCOTUS took the case de facto made it a federal decision that guides all the states -- no matter how much lip service they paid to states' right in the decision.

[AndyJackson]

I'm still a bit torn on whether the federal government has the right to prevent localities from doing that.

First, you have to dismiss from your head the notion that states have rights. They don't. Individuals have rights. States have powers, and those powers are circumscribed by the US Constitution, just as are the powers of the Federal Government. The Federal Government under the 14th ammendment if not others has the authority, under equal protection to prevent the states from abusing their powers.