Free Republic

The Senate Rules Committee has finally agreed to assign SCA 15 – the Homeowner and Property Protection Act – along with other eminent domain bills to the Senate Judiciary Committee to be heard this coming Tuesday. Your property rights are now in their hands. Members of the Judiciary Committee (contact information is listed below) will now have the power to send SCA 15 straight to the floor of the Senate. I am counting on you to light up their phones, faxes and email boxes and convey two simple messages: 1. Give SCA 15 a full and fair hearing and pass...

The debate over the government's right to take private property prompted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling hovers at the very doorstep of Jody Carey and Dennis Wood, who live in a 1,000-square-foot house at the edge of a canyon in City Heights. No sooner did they buy the property for $260,000 last year and spend $200,000 rebuilding it – complete with a built-in beer keg tap in the kitchen, two limestone-trimmed spa bathtubs and maple floors throughout – than they received a notice from a little-known agency that their home and 187 others nearby might be demolished. "It...

SACRAMENTO – Government's historic power to take land has been exercised to clear out slumlords and revitalize decaying downtowns, as well as manipulated to uproot homeowners and mom and pop stores to make way for mega-malls and high-rises. Hit with scattered horror stories but convinced from her experiences on the San Diego City Council that eminent domain can be a valuable tool for progress, state Sen. Christine Kehoe says it's time to rethink how local governments use – and sometimes abuse – their broad powers of condemnation. The San Diego Democrat has introduced legislation that includes an immediate two-year moratorium...

Eminent Domain Press ConferencePosted on July 15, 2005 Remarks by Senator Tom McClintockThe purpose of this press conference is to announce the introduction of SCA 15 and ACA 22 to restore the original property rights protections of the American Bill of Rights that were ripped out of the Constitution by the Kelo decision of the U.S. Supreme Court two weeks ago. That decision breaks the Social Compact that gives government its legitimacy and opened a new era when the rich and powerful can use government to seize the property of ordinary citizens for private gain. It may now literally take...