Well, the stuff Hillary wrote as an ignorant yoot certainly seems to define what she is now. 
Posted on 08/19/2005 8:41:48 PM PDT by FReethesheeples
A Supreme Property Rights Disaster In The Making More Kelo on the SCOTUS horizon?... [James S. Burling] 8/15/05
After a term marked by the Supreme Court’s utter contempt for property rights, those of us who happen to think there is something special about allowing old widows to keep their homes were not prepared for an even more bitter defeat. Yet, that is what President Bush handed us with the nomination of John Roberts.
The battle over property rights is not a conservative versus liberal thing. It’s more a struggle between those who believe in the power of the state to dictate how we get to use our land and homes versus those of us who believe that the state has no business destroying our right to make reasonable use of our property.
Guest Contributor James S. Burling James S. Burling is a Principal Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation [go to Guest index]
That is because when government can go about destroying with impunity our ability to use property, none of our liberties can be safe.
As James Madison put it, “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.”
This spring, the Court handed down a series of cases that stand for the proposition that today in America, no man (or widow) is safe.
In a case out of Hawaii, the Court held that courts had to defer to a legislative scheme to reduce gas prices by controlling the rents paid by gas stations--even though it was proven in federal court that the scheme would have no such economic effect.
In a case out of San Francisco, the Court held that landowners may no longer have their day in federal court when a local government has violated their rights guaranteed by the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. San Francisco regularly tells hotel owners that they must pay a “fee” of hundreds of thousands of dollars for permission to rent existing rooms to tourists.
Now landowners can no longer go to federal court to argue that bizarre and extortionate policy violates the federal constitution’s proscription against “taking without just compensation.”
But the most notorious decision of this term was the 5 to 4 Kelo decision that upheld the raw power of the City of New London, Connecticut, to destroy a neighborhood of homes, including that of an 87 year old widow who had lived in her home since 1918.
So long as a “public purpose” is met, in this case by providing some aesthetic value to a large corporate headquarters project, the Court will not interfere. The language in the Constitution that property can be taken only for “public use” were just words to the Courts–words that can be shaped and reshaped to meet the needs of the state.
But if an 87 year old Connecticut widow can have her property rights destroyed, how about dozens of elderly landowners, many of them widows and widowers, near Lake Tahoe?
That is where Judge Roberts comes in.
In a notorious case in 2002, John Roberts, then a private attorney, argued that several dozen mostly elderly and middle class landowners should not receive a penny in compensation even after a local land use agency had prohibited all use of their property near Lake Tahoe for nearly 30 years.
In a nutshell, Roberts argued that impacts to property owners must be balanced against the utility of the regulation–in a way that tilts almost every time in the government’s favor. Unfortunately for the landowners, the Court agreed with him.
Of course, one might argue, Roberts was only doing what he was being paid to do as a high-priced lawyer to represent his client. But why then did he take the case for a “substantially reduced” fee as the chief of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency admits?
More disturbingly, Robert’s representation of the agency is entirely consistent with the statist philosophy he expressed in a 1978 Harvard Law Review article on land use law. He argued against clear rules that would put boundaries on government power over property in favor of essentially the same government-friendly “balancing test” that he advocated for in the Lake Tahoe case.
Even more troubling, he proposed a scheme that would deny money to landowners whose property is taken, using the sort of rhetoric that reminds us of Bill Clinton’s prevarications over the meaning of the word “is.” Roberts wrote: “The very terms of the fifth amendment, furthermore, are sufficiently flexible to accommodate changing notions of what compensation is ‘just.’”
Put another way, what we have here is not the “living constitution” so derided by strict constructionists, but a “mutating virus” infinitely malleable in the service of the state, and undeniably threatening to the rights of property owners. Justice O’Connor was a swing vote on property; with Roberts it will be the property owners who will be twisting in the wind. tOR
copyright 2005 Acton Institute
Heads up.
Yeah I just saw that... Thanks.
Heads up!
Thanks again for both of your comments.
heads up
In the words of Mark Twain, "Do not get drunk on the smell of somebody else's cork."
John / Billybob
See my post earlier in this thread. In short, this is a tempest in a teapot.
J / BB
No offense, but why would you? Bush doesn't care anything about property rights or he would have come out strongly against the decision and advocated an amendment. For some reason the only thing that matters enough to push for an amendment is flag burning and gay marriage.
Remember, republicans have appointed 7 of the 9 current justices. We can't blame Clinton or the democrats for what the SCOTUS has become.
As long as abortion is such a hot button issue, we will continue getting this crackpot justices.
You do realize that this is kind of a big issue right?
BTTT!!!!!!!
"Just compensation" is based on the notion of the social compact. A compact is when parties surrender the exact same things in exchange for the exact same benefit. The bargain must always be in equilibrium. Under the compact, a man's "estate must be made whole" for any loss due to a taking for the benefit of the whole in order to maintain equilibrium.
Declaration of the Convention of Delegates from the towns of Lynn, Salem, Danvers, Wenham, Manchester, Gloucester, Ipswich, Newbury-Port, Salidsbury, Methuen, Boxford and Topsfield held at Ipswich in the County of Essex reacting to the proposed 1778 Massachusetts constitution. - Essex Result, 1778 (excerpts.)
"When men form themselves into society, and erect a body politic or State, they are to be considered as one moral whole, which is in the possession of the supreme power of the State. This supreme power is composed of the powers of each individual collected together, and voluntarily parted with by him. No individual, in this case, parts with unalienable rights, the supreme power therefore cannot controul them. Each individual also surrenders the power of controuling his natural alienable rights, only when the good of the whole requires it. The supreme power therefore can do nothing but what is for the good of the whole; and when it goes beyond this line, it is a power usurped. If the individual receives an equivalent for the right of controul he has parted with, the surrender of that right is valid; if he receives no equivalent, the surrender is void, and the supreme power as it respects him is an usurper...."
"It has been observed, that each individual parts with the power of controuling his natural alienable rights, only when the good of the whole requires it; he therefore has remaining, after entering into political society, all his unalienable natural rights, and a part also of his alienable natural rights, provided the good of the whole does not require the sacrifice of them. Over the class of unalienable rights the supreme power hath no controul, and they ought to be clearly defined and ascertained in a Bill of Rights, previous to the ratification of any constitution. The bill of rights should also contain the equivalent every man receives, as a consideration for the rights he has surrendered. This equivalent consists principally in the security of his person and property, and is also unassailable by the supreme power; for if the equivalent is taken back, those natural rights which were parted with to purchase it, return to the original proprietor, as nothing more is true, than that allegiance and protection are reciprocal."
He wrote this article while he was still a law student!! Are we going to hold what people write as ignorant yoots over their heads as well? Unbelievable!
Well, the stuff Hillary wrote as an ignorant yoot certainly seems to define what she is now.
The activities of feminists over abortion laws in the states was a teapot tempest in the '60s.
""Mark Levine for SCOTUS!!!""
interesting you say that cuz Mark Levin supports John Roberts
""The odor of justice Souter wafts faintly on the breeze...""
you obviously havent been paying attention to what is in the Reagan era documents
Thanks, I am sure there is a lot of missing details from this analysis. Telling us a story about a bunch of poor old lady land investors doesn't quite paint the whole picture. I just don't believe this story is a very accurate portrait of what Roberts argued or believes and would not jump hastily to any conclusions.
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