Is it your take eminent domain should never be used?
RE: Is it your take eminent domain should never be used?
Case by case and in the case of Kelo, it SHOULD NOT have been used.
The Fifth Amendment Public Use Clause authorizes a city to exercise its eminent domain power only “for public use.” Yet, in Kelo the court permitted a city to transfer one homeowner’s property to another private party as long as there would be some future “public benefit.”
The perceived injustice of allowing the government to transfer a citizen’s perfectly well-kept land to a corporation for its own use generated dismay and anger throughout the public and resulted in a host of state constitutional amendments and other takings restrictions.
Ten years later, the case’s reputation is no less notorious. In a recent legal memo, “Revisiting Kelo,” The Heritage Foundation documents the confluence of errors in the Kelo decision and sketches where we can expect to go from here.
READ ABOUT IT HERE:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/06/revisiting-kelo
Kelo also erred in treating the concept of “public use” as “public purpose.” The memorandum emphasizes that, because the court did not address a Public Use Clause question until late in the 19th century, it did not have the opportunity to articulate a well-developed theory of the meaning of the Public Use Clause that was grounded in the Framers’ intent. The text of the Public Use Clause limits takings to situations in which land would be used by the general public or by its representative, the government. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has consistently read the term “public use” far more broadly as meaning mere public benefit.
Although the Supreme Court has continued to give lip-service to the proposition that the government may not take property from “A” simply to give it to “B,” the reality is that the court has never found a taking that fails the public benefit test.
The liberal wing of the Supreme Court voted FOR the Kelo decision while the conservative wing ( Scalia and Thomas included with Thomas writing the dissent ) voted AGAINST it.