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SOLD DOWN THE RIVER. How Haley Barbour sabotaged eminent domain reform
Reason Magizine ^ | May 11, 2009 | Damon W. Root

Posted on 05/11/2009 1:22:48 PM PDT by mick

Since the Supreme Court's notorious 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which allowed that municipality to seize private property on behalf of the Pfizer Corporation, 43 states have passed laws protecting property rights against Kelo-style eminent domain abuse. Mississippi is not one of those states. But that nearly changed in March 2009 when the Mississippi legislature voted overwhelmingly in support of a proposed law which would have guaranteed that "the right of eminent domain shall not be exercised for the purpose of taking or damaging privately owned real property for private development or for a private purpose; or for enhancement of tax revenue; or for transfer to a person, nongovernmental entity, public-private partnership, corporation or other business entity." But none of that mattered to Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who promptly vetoed the bill, claiming it would cripple his ability to lure large corporations into the state.

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Mississippi
KEYWORDS: barbour; bsarticle; eminentdomain; haleybarbour; lping; propertyrights; reform; stupidauthor
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Talk is cheap. Actions count when you say you are a Conservative.
1 posted on 05/11/2009 1:22:49 PM PDT by mick
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To: bamahead

!


2 posted on 05/11/2009 1:23:19 PM PDT by rabscuttle385 ("If this be treason, then make the most of it!" —Patrick Henry)
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To: mick

Haley just screwed himself for any future consideration.


3 posted on 05/11/2009 1:24:48 PM PDT by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)
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To: mick

Unfortunately, some of the negative things said about republican leaders are true.


4 posted on 05/11/2009 1:25:43 PM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (THE SECOND AMENDMENT, A MATTER OF FACT, NOT A MATTER OF OPINION)
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: pissant

He’s done. Turns out Haley is just another wet weasel RINO with a fungible set of principles. He is now an official entry on my RINO $hitlist.


6 posted on 05/11/2009 1:28:41 PM PDT by Czar ((Still Fed Up to the Teeth with Washington))
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To: wardaddy; KLT; montesquiue; Downsouth55; Michael Knight; ejonesie22; bkwells; DogwoodSouth; ...

Ms ping


7 posted on 05/11/2009 1:31:39 PM PDT by WKB
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To: mick

Will put this on my “Do Not Read RINO List”. LOL


8 posted on 05/11/2009 1:33:09 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote.)
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To: pissant
Haley just screwed himself for any future consideration.

Yep, he's showing himself to be yet another corporatist GOP hack, which IMO is the worst species of RINO - those who think corporations should have more rights than citizens.

9 posted on 05/11/2009 1:34:35 PM PDT by dirtboy
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To: mick
But none of that mattered to Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who promptly vetoed the bill, claiming it would cripple his ability to lure large corporations into the state.
Eminent Domain reform isn't what would keep large corporations from relocating to Mississippi.
Being Mississippi is what keeps large corporations from relocating to Mississippi!
It's not the poorest state in the union for nothing.
 
10 posted on 05/11/2009 1:34:41 PM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: mick

Haley Barbour is friends and business partners in a restaurant with one of the biggest Democrat lobbyists in Washington DC.


11 posted on 05/11/2009 1:37:07 PM PDT by balch3
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To: pissant
Haley just screwed himself for any future consideration.

*******************

Yes, not that I was ever a fan, but this is completely unacceptable.

12 posted on 05/11/2009 1:38:49 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: mick
I feel certain there another side to the story not told here. It probably has something to to do with a specific action which spurred the bill, or the veto. I will hold my thoughts until the rest of the story comes out.
13 posted on 05/11/2009 1:40:18 PM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda" and its allies.)
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To: mick
"the right of eminent domain shall not be exercised for the purpose of taking or damaging privately owned real property for private development or for a private purpose; or for enhancement of tax revenue; or for transfer to a person, nongovernmental entity, public-private partnership, corporation or other business entity."

I have a bit of a problem with that because here is Kansas we have a case where eminent domain was used to acquire land for a private developer to build the Kansas Speedway. The goal of the Wyandotte County government was to spur economic development in the area hoping that higher sales tax revenues would lead to lower taxes - at the time Wyandotte had the highest property and personal property taxes in the state. To make a long story short, the goal of attracting additional economic development succeeded far beyond anyone's wildest dreams - stores, hotels, water parks, theaters, minor league ball park, all built as a result of the Kansas Speedway being there - and all the residents of the county have had their taxes lowered every year and the level of their services increasing over the same period.

I'm not in favor of using eminent domain willy-nilly, but this is a case where using those powers to aid a private developer led to real benefits for everyone in the county. According to this law, the county would not have been able to do that and odds are the race track and all its benefits would have been lost. I think that this is a decision best left to the states and that the Supreme Court was right in refusing to overturn the Connecticut court decision. Right or wrong, its for the states to decide.

14 posted on 05/11/2009 1:41:21 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: rabscuttle385; Abathar; Abcdefg; Abram; Abundy; akatel; albertp; AlexandriaDuke; Alexander Rubin; ..
"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." --James Madsion



Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
15 posted on 05/11/2009 1:43:01 PM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: rabscuttle385

Barbour went RINO when he jumped on the ‘soak the insurers’ bandwagon after Katrina in the name of populism...


16 posted on 05/11/2009 1:44:27 PM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: trisham

Yea. This is a 100% unacceptable position for anyone calling themselves a conservative or libertarian.


17 posted on 05/11/2009 1:49:40 PM PDT by Brookhaven
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To: mick
Gov Barbour vetoed the bill because he said it was "too broad". He has called a special session to address the issue,
... to formally regulate the government's use of eminent domain to take private property for economic development projects. "It would be a very, very strict process would have to be accomplished before any private property could be taken," Barbour said Tuesday at the Capitol.
It is doubtful that MS would have landed either the Nissan plant in Canton, or the Toyota plant in north MS if the land could not have been secured for these massive manufacturing projects. Whoever said Mississippi isn't 50th for no reason is correct. We had almost 100 years of single party (democrat) rule in this state. If you want to see corrupt party politics, you'll never see a better example than the Dem party in MS, unless you're looking at the Dem party in CA, NY, NJ, IL, etc, etc, etc.
18 posted on 05/11/2009 1:50:28 PM PDT by grandpa jones (obama must be exhausted, having to tote that giant brain of his around all the time.,.)
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To: mick
From the Governor's veto statement:

"After full consideration, I am vetoing House Bill 803... If the Mississippi Legislature had set out to devise a law to make it highly unlikely that Mississippi could attract major projects with large numbers of jobs like Nissan, Toyota, PACCAR, Stennis Space Center or facilities along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, House Bill 803 would do the trick. None of these huge job creation projects would exist in Mississippi today without the prudent, lawful use of government’s power to take private property by eminent domain."

Extremely disappointing. Liberty is nowhere in the equation here.

19 posted on 05/11/2009 1:51:09 PM PDT by americanophile
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To: pissant

Yeup and the Democrats keep PROGRESSING ALONG. While we attack our own.


20 posted on 05/11/2009 1:51:33 PM PDT by Paige ("All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," Edmund Burke)
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