High Court: Govts Can Take Property for Econ Development

Bloomberg News

[Helmholtz]

U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.

[SittinYonder]

Not only is montag813 naive, there are already at least three situations where "established residential" areas are being taken for a private developer ... INCLUDING THE CASE THAT BROUGHT ABOUT THIS SCOTUS RULING!

Geez, montag, if you're going to get into the debate at least know what you're talking about.

[Nowhere Man]

Not that we need another reason to oppose this ruling, but what's to stop a corporation from targeting small to medium sized competition by working with cities to seize their locations and drive them out of business. Let's say that Home Depot wants to destroy a regional hardware chain that is holding their market share back in that part of the country. Maybe that company has half a dozen outlets that provide the bulk of their revenues. Target those locations, propose new businesses and homes that would generate more taxes, and the competition is gone. The other hardware store has trouble relocating to sites that work as well, so their revenue goes down. They have to close stores. Their buying power goes down. Suppliers can't offer the same prices. Pretty soon the retailer throws in the towel and closes up or sells out to Big Orange.

I went to "Big Orange" to get a new washer for a spigot, well the guy got me a washer but it didn't fit. I then went to my local mom and pop hardware store and the guy there did get me the right washer and even a new screw (I needed one) and he even put it in for me. He is an older guy, having a hard time, even got signs in the window saying, "I need your help" and "I need your business." He even has a calico cat in the store, a nice touch, being the cat person that I am. I got better service at the local store.

[SittinYonder]

Maybe we could buy the DNC headquarters and have it plowed under!

LOL. Find the bright side. I pointed out to my wife that at least we'll be closer to WalMart when they take the front half of our neighborhood.

[TheForceOfOne]

I found one, its "BloggerRadio" and the troll is currently logged into the forum trolling around. Check out http://www.bloggerradio.com/

A leftest dung pile website.

[boofus]

Anyone authoring the petition should begin it with the words "When the course of human events" and date it July 4, 2005. It is coming up soon and may lend extra weight to the argument against this tyrannical decision.

[boofus]

"When in the course of human events" even. I hate trying type coherent sentences when infuriated.

[montag813]

Geez, montag, if you're going to get into the debate at least know what you're talking about.

I was speaking about real estate buyers, where to buy and not to buy. There are areas which will have no impact from this ruling, and that is where buyers should focus. That was my point. I am not naive. I do a large amount of real estate activity and am well aware of individual ED laws in each state.

[Dat Mon]

You said..."Basically the only reason you can hold onto your property is if it is not considered valueable enough to seize by big business. You have your land because the goverment is giving you permission to stay there for the moment."

That is exactly true. Your statements are the logical extrapolation of this ruling.

The point is..with this ruling...big developers now have incentive to get very actively involved in local government activities. This law...plus the authority empowered to local zoning commissions...gives them considerable leeway.

Before this ruling...they had some inhibitions because of the threat of a lawsuit...particularly a class action suit brought by a group of homeowners.

Now..the inhibiting effect of legal action by the homeowner have been removed.

You cant take your case to a local court...they will be immediately overruled if their decision does not hold with this ruling.

Your only hope is that you have local government officials who are honest and incorruptible. Thats a tall order in some areas.

[Just A Nobody]

Great idea! I would just like to adjust/comment on #6.

6. Demand to change Senate unconstitutional rules to prevent filibusters of Presidential appointments ... and make it LAW.

The unconstitutional senate rules defied the constitution, much like the SC defied the constitution with this ruling. It should never have come to this.

[Vicomte13]

"I grow weary of your constant, incorrect comparisons of the Us and French Systems of Government."

I do not believe my comparisons are incorrect.

[Just A Nobody]

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

[Just A Nobody]

See post 1187 and 1290

Let's all now apologize to Ben Franklin -

Might as well - we have apologized to just about everyone else for everything else. It is high time we started apologizing to our dead founders.

[Just A Nobody]

I understand the sentiment, however, Roe vs. Wade did not end the US as we know it. This decision will. There is a COUNTRY of difference.

[Vicomte13]

I wrote: "Private property rights in Europe, at least in people's homes, are more protected than in the US."

You responded: "BS. In an earlier post you claimed that the parlament can pass "unconstitutional" laws and that the courts are powerless to uphold the constitution. Thus, the whim of the majority determines what rights you have at any given time."

I respond: You are treating things "constitutional" as talismanic, as though the labelling of a law as "constitutional" causes it to have different, special, or immutable authority. In the US, a law is constitutional or not according to the say so of the US Supreme Court. Even in theory there is not a difference, for the US Constitutional document identifies itself as "the supreme law of the land" (interestingly, it also identifies treaties using the same term). The Constitution is law. What Parliament passes is law. It is all law.

The putative difference is that it is harder to change a constitutional law than a regular law. This is also true in France.

In the US, the property right is said to be written into the Constitutional law, with the "takings clause", which the Supreme Court has explained means that any level of government can take any private property if by doing so it will increase tax revenues. In France, the property right is written in the ancient "Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizen", which is adopted into the French Constitution of 1958.

Can Parliament change the constitution?
Yes, by a greater majority than a normal law.
In the US, the local city of New London changed the historic understanding of what could be taken by simply doing it, and the US Supreme Court said yesterday that that is alright.

In France, there is no generic power to repossess homes for such purposes. For government to have that power, Parliament would have to so legislate, and the proposal would propose such a firestorm of protest that it would probably not pass. If it did, attempting to enforce it on private homes the way this was done in Connecticut would result in blossoming strikes and the law would have to be repealed.

You have raised a theoretical (since homes are not taken by law in France to be given to wealthier private people), and suggested that in France all that would have to happen would be Parliament to vote for it.

But Parliament would be subject to a hellstorm of public opposition were it to start to move to do so, and there would be general strikes if it did, and that law would not survive. Personal privacy and the private home are practically sacred to the French.

The Supreme Court just did this in the US.
There was no public debate, and certainly no constitutional amendment. People are angry.
Will anything be done about it?
No.

That is the difference that I look at.
And it causes me to say that, truthfully, homes are more protected in France than in America, because the bottom line in America is that if WalMart wants it, they get it.
And in France, they don't.
To me, everything else is theoretical.

[Vicomte13]

"I hate to say it, but you have a point. When a swamp judge in Florida can trump the President and Congress, who is going to stand up to the SCOTUS?"

The last person to successfully do so was the President Lincoln.

[PigRigger]

"DU is as upset as we are (well maybe not quite as upset)...."

It's kind of funny when you read their (DU) posts; they haven't a clue as to why we would be against this ruling.

They really have convinced themselves that all on the right are rich rednecks.

The really have no understanding that most on the conservative side are just ordinary middle class families who embrace less government intervention in our lives.

[montag813]

24 HOURS SINCE THE RULING.

AMERICA IS OUTRAGED.

WHERE IS PRESIDENT BUSH?

NOT A WORD.

[Just A Nobody]

...the license plates on his rusty pickup still bore the New Hampshire state motto: "Live Free or Die." Carl Drega was different from most of us, all right. He believed it still meant something.

Thank you.

[PigRigger]

At the very least Clinton would have given us a heart felt speech by now.....Outside of the WOT I am not happy with the President at this time.

He has failed us on the domestic front in so many ways.....and let's not alk about the Repubs in congress...there is a huge disconnect between the citizenry and our elected officials....