Posted on 12/04/2006 10:57:41 AM PST by spintreebob
Is this Shopping Center Blighted?
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The tenants are mainly successful entrepreneurs with booming business
The Village of Arlington Heights, Illinois is voting to seize the International Plaza Shopping Center, by eminent domain, in order to transfer ownership to a private developer who plans to build a SuperTarget. This will significantly hurt and, in many instances, put out of business over 70 tenants in the shopping center.
How can they do this? The only legal way is to declare the property "blighted," which they have done. Despite the fact that the center was 98% leased when declared "blighted," and is one of the more attractive shopping centers in Arlington Heights, they have declared it "blighted" so that they can attract a tenant (Target) who will bring in more tax revenue.
In Your vote, indicate where you live, and whether or not you have seen this property
Also, the 14th amendment specifically broadens all rights given the people to be protected from the federal government also apply to the state governments
You said what I said.
The passage you cited, in the legislative history of the 14th Amendment, made the point that I made: The Constitution was not originally intended to limit the states, just the feds.
By the 14th amendment it limits the states.
But the Supreme Court defines the precise terms of those limits, and has.
bkmarmk
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.
The first amendment says Congress shall make no law... The rest of the bill of rights does not specify Congress. It applies to everything in the USA.
MN Sen Mark Dayton would take offense at calling his inheritance a blight.
You have to be kidding. Are you saying the 2d amendment does not apply to the states? The third? the fourth? the fifth?
You need to go back to sixth grade civics class.
"The system isn't perfect but its better than anything else out there."
What is this commonly-held belief based on?
"The system is better than anything else out there."
Really?
It's more just than, say, the legal system in Denmark?
It convicts fewer innocent men than the system in Holland?
What is it about the American justice system, the system ITSELF, that makes it so damned good?
It's far more EXPENSIVE than any of the competing first world systems, devouring a couple of percentage of the GDP every year. It is far more INTRUSIVE, with civil discovery especially, than anything in any other free country.
What is it that makes the American justice system "better" or even as good as, the justice system in a dozen other Western countries?
It is not better.
It is worse.
Americans are proud and nationalistic, and therefore they tout their legal system as the best.
It's not.
Not even close.
The system itself is not as good (and is very expensive and comparatively slow), and the laws themselves are either better or worse, depending on the subject matter.
For example, if you care about unborn babies, the laws of Guatemala are more civilized than the laws of the United States.
If you care about intrusive, invasive "strike suits", shakedowns for money by the plaintiff's bar, the French laws of discovery are a lot better than the laws of the United States.
And so on.
It's the system we have and we're stuck with it, but I would say, in my somewhat learned opinion, that the legal system of the United States is a boil on the bottom of the Republic, and we would be much better off with the legal systems of at least a half-dozen other civilized countries, than we are with ours.
The political system is a different case, but that's not the legal system.
It applied, from the moment it was adopted, to everything in the USA, and that's what the Founders INTENDED?
That is what you are arguing.
Alright, then, find me the place in the Constitution where it says "Except for slaves", so that we can understand why it is that slaves were deprived of civil rights they always, always had, and that the Founders INTENDED that they should have, from the beginning. Explain to me why everyone thought it necessary after the Civil War to amend the Constitution so that it would be clear that the States could NO LONGER deprive anybody, ex-slaves included, of the rights guaranteed under the federal Constitution?
If you are right, then the slaveholding states were in direct violation of the Constitution from the instant they ratified it, and the Federal government always had the right to intervene with force to enforce the rights of black slaves, and women too.
It didn't mean that.
Federalist papers make it clearer. The Founders meant the Feds.
The GREAT COMPROMISE in the original constitution is the definition of slaves as 3/5 of a person.
Please go back to 6th grade civics class. You are embarassing.
Perhaps you would be happier in one of those other countries?
? ? ? ?
Currently 99% of the Fortune 500 and 80% of the church denominations and many of us individuals and small businesses are openly flaunting the immigration laws by aiding and abetting illegal immigration. Post Dred Scott Entire towns, counties and even entire states chose to disobey the "law of the land". There is organized resistance to support tax evasion (conveniently called tax avoidance). There are many other examples.
The Connecticut Compromise did indeed make ratification of the Constitution possible.
But James Madison himself initially opposed the addition of a Bill of Rights, because he thought there was an expresio unius problem. His position was that on the face of the document, the FEDERAL government was limited by the very terms of the document, and therefore nobody could reasonably argue that the FEDERAL government could do any of those things that are contained in the Bill of Rights.
He came around to the idea of the Bill of Rights when he saw that the state delegations were balking at adoption because they did not think that the FEDERAL government was properly limited in its powers.
That was the discussion of the time. That was the worry. Hamilton had the same view, and wrote about it in the Federalist papers. The idea that the limitations in the Constitution, other than a few very specific ones (to wit: that the states had to have a public vote for their most numerous house - "a republican form of government"), were intended to be upon the States is simply untrue.
In their wildest dreams the Founders did not think they were limiting their own states under their own state constitutions, by adopting the Federal Bill of Rights.
And it's "embarrassing", not "embarassing".
If all there were to a country were its legal system, perhaps. But of course that is not the case. The US legal system is an expensive, abusive mess. Fortunately, there are plenty of other good things about the country that allow one to overlook this boil on the bottom of the Republic most of the time.
And anyway, one virtue of having a messy and inconsistent legal system is that people have to pay lawyers a whole lot more money here than elsewhere, precisely because the law here is so much more treacherous and capricious. Wherever the law is clear, settled, and not prone to caprice, lawyers are relatively cheap, because you don't need them for much. The rules are clear and consistent. In the US, to do business you have to lawyer everything up, because the legal system is a casino.
"Give 'em the old razzle dazzle...razzle-dazzle 'em."
Is that the one on Golf Road east of Arlington Heights Rd.? I remember when they built that place less than 20 years ago. How can it be blighted?
It can be blighted, because the definition of "blight" is a matter of local land use regulations, which is decided by the town council. "Blight" is whatever the local ordinance defines as blight. There is no federal definition of the word.
That's states' rights for ya!
Where's the jury???
I agree politically that the best recourse in the issue of eminent domain is in the states, but only because the principle of stare decisis makes reversal in the US Supreme Court very unlikely... but that doesn't mean that O'Connor et al ruled correctly.
Your argument that the original intent of the Bill of Rights was to limit federal power is a weak one. If it were true, the ninth and tenth amendments would have identical purposes. The ninth amendment reserves freedoms not to the state, but to the person, so it cannot be that the founding fathers meant to say, "the federal government cannot abridge these unalienable rights, but the state can."
Your reading of the Constitution is over legalistic; I don't know if this comes from merely trying to point out flaws in strict constructionism. But the Constitution presupposes English common law; the Bill of Rights sought to enunciate that fact. The separation of Church and Nation applied to the federal government; indeed, there were several establishments of religion within the states... And hence, the first amendment begins with "Congress..." However, the subsequent amendments make no reference to Congress at all. In fact, most deal with matters which have to do primarily with state issues, such as prosecutions, and quartering of soldiers (which were then state militias), etc.
If you are going to argue that strict constructionism only recognizes what is specificially stated, then you must acknowledge that the Bill of Rights, in most instances, makes no distinction between freedom from the federal government and freedom from local governments. (In fact, the founding fathers would be aghast at the notion that freedoms are granted by governments, rather than merely recognized as inalienable.) Once you open the door to allow that strict constructionism permits presumptions such as that the COnstitution only applied to the federal government, then you have veered into the territory of originalism, and you must also admit the fact that the Constitution presumes common law, and all its implied rights of man.
In either case, even if the takings clause and the ninth amendment originally applied only to the federal government (which even the New London supporters would disagree with), you have to acknowledge that the fourteenth amendment applied freedoms from the federal government to also apply to freedoms from the state government.
"As to your cite, it was made mute with the passage of the Amendment."
Darn...I meant to write 'moot'...I hate writing in a hurry
"This is why America is a great place to live, so long as you never come under the scrutiny of the government. The moment that you do, it becomes an oppressive, abusive and altogether Prussian place."
You sound like me talking to my wife. She is well aware that the law is often crap. I comfort her with teh knowledge that 99% of folk are never noticed by the government and as such, are pretty free to go about their lives unmolested. The other 1% have been noticed and will have to suffer the pain of the system to get back to the not bothered system again.
It is sad that the best redeeming feature of our government is its innefficiency.
"Fact is, cities have the right, under the US Constitution, to take private property and give it to other private developers in order to get more tax money. The Supreme Court said dso, thand the Supreme Court is the de facto law of the land. It doesn't matter that the Constitution can be interpreted to say otherwise, because the supremacy of the Supreme Court is ENFORCED by force of arms, and nobody is willing to fight the government over the principle. The law is what the law does, and the federal law of America is that eminent domain taking of private property to hand it over to the richer guy who wants it is legal. Don't like that? Change the state constitution. If developer interests in your state are too strong, you won't even be able to do that."
The BOR exists to protect both individuals and the state. That it has been perverted by the courts is a sad result fo the process. I believe the Kelo, like Roe and Campaign Finance, wil be gradually changed over the years to return case law to its constitutional base.
As long as people swallow the "...we are a nation of laws..."crap, it's hard to change things.
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