Posted on 06/23/2005 7:30:08 AM PDT by Helmholtz
U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.
That would be EMINENT domain and, no, the price paid is routinely below market because the threat of the taking depresses the price.
Our troops are not going to recognize what this country has become when they come back. It was bad enough that our reserve troops could lose their regular jobs for serving their country. But wait until they find out they can lose their homes so a new parking lot for the mall or a condo can be built to line the pockets of the developer and the city. :(
Disgraceful.
"Public use and utilities were the precedent before..."
Hopefully a process can be initiated to reverse this
ruling.
Otherwise, what's next? Government redistribution
of Intellectual Property rights from politically unpopular
corporations or individuals. Or maybe the Feds will come
for my lawnmower because Sears is low on inventory that
week.
Both O'Connor and Thomas directly address your observation in their dissents. They do a better job than would a brief rejoinder from myself.
Worth considering. Btw, thanks for my new tagline...
Hamilton wanted to eliminate the states altogether. It might be that they did after all, but it just took a while to become obvious to all. Local gov't--Use it or lose it.
It's been building a long time...this is jut the latest example. Prior to the Civil War, in its aftermath, really got moving down hill in 1913 and beyond, picked up a fevered, almost suicidal pitch under FDR, became deadly in the 1960's and 1970's, reached new deathly lows in the 1990s...and now this (not to mention CFR and others).
Nope, it's a long term, killing drought that has brought the tree of liberty to this point...this horrible thirst it is experiencing now.
"We "banded together" and voted Bush in for a second term, and tyranny has become more rampant than during Clinton's terms.
What makes you think the next "Republican" will be any different?"
The Sith were good. The senate was corrupted...they set it right.
FWIW, there goes my usual agreement with Justice Kennedy's view..
Roger that Right Whale,
Saturn 6 out!
Interesting.
Perhaps I just only get the idea from media outlets and rich right wing Americans.
On the other hand, when I look at such polls as there are on specific issues, such as abortion, for example, I see that the American people are much more in agreement with the French law of abortion than their own.
In France, abortion is quite limited, and there is nothing like the effective abortion on demand until birth. There is parental and spouse notification, a mandatory waiting period, and a government policy to discourage abortion. There cannot be abortion mills. Abortions must be performed at hospitals that do no more than 25% of their procedures as abortions. Now, as a Catholic person I oppose abortion at any point. But the French law of abortion is far, far more restrictive than the American law of abortion, and reflects about what the French populace thinks about it. It also seems to reflect quite closely what I gather, from polls, the American populace thinks about abortion.
Were abortion a purely political issue, of law, in the US, I gather (from the polls I have seen) that there would be abortion on demand for the first 10 weeks or so. Minors would require parental notification. Spouses would have to be notified and could object. There would be an active government policy of trying to discourage abortion and encourage adoption services, including counselling services, a week-long cooling off period and specific reference to the adoption option and to all of the family services available to women who carry babies to term. Abortion after the 10 weeks would only be for birth defects or if the mother's health was direly threatened, and it should be panels of doctors deciding this through appropriate medical review, not a single doctor deciding it. There would not be abortion mills.
That, it seems to me, would be the law in America, were Americans able to decide. It IS the law in France, because laws are made by a democratically elected Parliament.
In the US, there is abortion on demand until birth, effectively. Most people think this is a horror. Most people think spouses should have a say. Most people think that minors should need parental consent. But the Supreme Court makes all of the important laws in America, and so this law festers and nobody likes it.
That is just one example.
Today's ruling on taking houses is another one.
If Congress could vote, if the people could vote, would they come up with this law that the US Supreme Court has made?
I expect that, instead, they would say that government can take houses, in particular, only if it must for real government operations, like roads and public buildings, and not ever to transfer to some other wealthier private person.
That is the law in France, because that is the way the Parliament has made it. Parliament could not make a law like today's Supreme Court law, because the French people would throw them out. I suspect that Congress could not make a law like this either, for the same reason.
In America, all of the biggest decisions are taken away from the people.
Now, maybe Americans still express a 60% support for the Supreme Court in general, out of reverence for the institution and the almost religious devotion they express for the IDEAL of the US Constitution.
But the reality seems to be that they love the document, and they love the Court in the abstract, but they don't like most of the important laws that it passes.
Not at all. It is the use of the word 'public' that is the problem. We use it two ways, one technical, the other in street talk.
If somebody says he is the public and has a right to drive his car on the public road, he is mistaken.
If increasing revenue is justification for taking someone's property, what will stop them from using reduced costs to condemn undesirable locations? After all, reduced cost is a gain to the city.
-PJ
It's starting to look like that. The Feds take the money, then using as a big stick for every state to conform to their whims. Think Federal transportation funds, no child left behind, etc...
Ribbittttt, my bath is getting a little too warm.
That sounds like a good idea, but I don't think the odds of it happening are very good.
Hell has frozen over.This isn't a conservative vs. liberal issue. It's a libertarian vs. statist issue. I guess there are some people left on the left who still have respect for individual rights.The DU thread on this ruling reads exactly like this one.
Leftists look at this fascist ruling and think this shows how evil capitalism is. We look at this fascist ruling and think this shows how evil statism is. Well, at least both sides agree this is fascism, and at least a few on their side agree with us that fascism is a bad thing.
The Court’s holdings in Berman and Midkiff were true to the principle underlying the Public Use Clause. In both those cases, the extraordinary, precondemnation use of the targeted property inflicted affirmative harm on society—in Berman through blight resulting from extreme poverty and in Midkiff through oligopoly resulting from extreme wealth. And in both cases, the relevant legislative body had found that eliminating the existing property use was necessary to remedy the harm. Berman, supra, at 28–29; Midkiff, supra, at 232. Thus a public purpose was realized when the harmful use was eliminated. Because each taking directly achieved a public benefit, it did not matter that the property was turned over to private use. Here, in contrast, New London does not claim that Susette Kelo’s and Wilhelmina Dery’s well-maintained homes are the source of any social harm. Indeed, it could not so claim without adopting the absurd argument that any single-family home that might be razed to make way for an apartment building, or any church that might be replaced with a retail store, or any small business that might be more lucrative if it were instead part of a national franchise, is inherently harmful to society and thus within the government’s power to condemn.
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