No. SCOTUS has ruled that government has the Constitutional power to exercise Eminent Domain broadly. However, the Constitution is a floor, not a ceiling, when it comes to rights. Individual states can pass laws that grant citizens more rights than are in the Constitution.
An individual state, for example, could pass a law that completely banned the use of Eminent Domain by that state.
Could a state pass legislation allowing citizens to own machine guns?
And to get around the idiotic commerce clause, insist that the weapons be manufactured in that state?
Just curious, as I seem to recall legislation pending in Montana that would do just that.
[Mman] - No. SCOTUS has ruled that government has the Constitutional power to exercise Eminent Domain broadly. However, the Constitution is a floor, not a ceiling, when it comes to rights.
Scotus ruled that there is no constitutional floor under "public use"; -- that localities can simply confiscate property for the 'public good'.
Individual states can pass laws that grant citizens more rights than are in the Constitution. An individual state, for example, could pass a law that completely banned the use of Eminent Domain by that state.
Or that, conversely - under the same concept, they could simply 'pass a law' to confiscate property for the public good, disregarding the constitutional prohibitions of the 10th Amendment.
This outrageous decision reinforces the democratic 'majority rules' view of our Constitution, and ignores all it's republican principles of protecting individual inalienable rights.