Posted on 06/23/2005 7:30:08 AM PDT by Helmholtz
U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.
>>>(2) It will remain this way, because Americans do not want to do any of the things that would be required to change the situation.
I do. I just don't know what can be done. Any help there?
My bad! lol
"The fly in your balm ["But if the President overrules Supreme Court decisions by ordering the Executive Branch to not enforce them ..."] is that the State of Conneticut is actually enforcing this and the activist/unconstitutional subpremes merely placed their stamp of 'divided' approval upon it."
Yes, I see your point.
To work, what would have to happen would be the US Congress to pass a federal law that would make the taking of homes by eminent domain illegal, the Supreme Court overruling that law on the grounds that it was an unconstitutional act of Congress on federalism grounds, and the US President overriding the Supreme Court and enforcing the Congress' law anyway.
Well, again, I disagree with you. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the Supreme Court is a coequal branch. I don't mean this just in theory; I mean this in practice as well. The legislatures can override it when they see fit and have done so in the past - by the amendment process. The executive can override it by nominating justices that will overturn its decisions, and they have done so in the past. I know people like instant gratification (me included), but oh well.
Americans do not want to change the system. On that, you are correct.
Local governments have always been able to use eminent domain for roads, and schools, and such those are public uses. Today the line between public use and private use was obliterated leaving government with no restraints. Nothing worse than an unrestrained government.
Great screen name, by the way.
Well, property rights aren't absolute. There will always be provisions for ED and they will be abused. The control is in local/state hands now. Use it well. Good luck.
No more than any right is absolute. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, etc.
Man, Wal-Mart must be skeeting shorts at this news. First, nazi ads about "Would you let your government control what you read?" to "The government said we could take your house..."
Talk to people about a presidential override of a bad Supreme Court decision. That is the only realistic way, in the American system, to rein in the Supreme Court.
If the ground talk across America was that the President should do this on some outrageous issue, the word would filter up and the President might be emboldened to take the risk.
Or, perhaps, wait.
The wheel will turn in America.
Perhaps President Bush will put several justices on the Supreme Court.
Perhaps Hillary Clinton will win the White House, and the Democrats take back control of Congress because of Republican division and despair.
Perhaps Congress will pass a law on an issue of concern to President Hillary Clinton, but the Bush-appointee-dominated Supreme Court will overrule it.
I think that US Democrats would have exercised the so-called "nuclear option" long ago, and I expect that President Clinton would bring out the Lincoln precedent to override the Supreme Court, and rely upon Democrats in the Senate to refuse to impeach her.
Indeed, it is more likely, I think, that the Presidential override of the judiciary will occur under a Democratic president faced with a conservative Republican judiciary which persistently blocks his or her policies than for Republicans to do it.
Unfortunately.
Damn right. Me too.
Maybe we could get the D.C. govenment to condemn one of the 5 SCOTUS judge's house and give it to Wal Mart to build a new store. I'd support that. They should have to experience what they just did.
I'm sure you showered after that trip. I visited too and found out the few trying to defend this decision by "their" judges were trying to blame Wal-Mart. Sad.
Oh don't be sorry. My bf and I have been discussing this, and other news of the day. Oil up to 60 bucks a barrel, Dow down(last I heard)201, and the Chinese want to buy Unocal Oil.
Crazy days.
Just reading over the decision, it seems as if the court was unwilling to trump the state precedent for ED already in place. Isn't that the good people of CT's fault for having such a provision in place?
"Well, again, I disagree with you. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the Supreme Court is a coequal branch. I don't mean this just in theory; I mean this in practice as well. The legislatures can override it when they see fit and have done so in the past - by the amendment process."
Yes.
The most stirring example was the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and their related Civil Rights Acts (1866, 1873), all to end slavery and its "badges and incidents".
The Supreme Court overruled those amendments in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. They did not come back into force until the Supreme Court overruled itself in Brown v. Board of Education.
Of course the Supreme Court did not use language that said it specifically overruled those amendments or laws in Plessy. Rather, it simply ignored them.
I would not put the executive override option past Mrs. Hillary Clinton, should she become the next President of the United States and face a hostile, Republican Supreme Court.
;*) Understandable under this pressure.
So do I. Esp. her conclusion" " ...Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result. .[T]hat alone is a just government,. wrote James Madison, .which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.. For the National Gazette, Property, (Mar. 29, 1792), reprinted in 14 Papers of James Madison 266 (R. Rutland et al. eds. 1983). I would hold that the takings in both Parcel 3 and Parcel 4A are unconstitutional, reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and remand for further proceedings..." http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/04-108P.ZD
>>> Isn't that the good people of CT's fault for having such a provision in place?
How is it the people of CT's fault? I don't think CT gets to vote on these provisions. I know we can't in my state.
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