Free Republic

If there is an indefensible position on property rights, count on an academic to take it. On March 20 the Supreme Court began to hear oral arguments in Murr v. Wisconsin, a property rights case it agreed to take up in January 2016. The Cato Institute previewed the case on St. Patrick's Day. "Joseph Murr and his siblings own two side-by-side lakeside lots, one with a recreational cabin and the other left vacant as an investment," the Cato Institute release noted. "Due to land-use restrictions, they allege that Wisconsin has 'taken' the vacant lot, which would require the state to...

A judge’s order could delay the start of construction on the next segment of the Winston-Salem Northern Beltway unless contested condemnation claims are resolved by this coming fall. Attorney Matthew Bryant said Forsyth County Superior Court Judge John Craig would be signing orders this week dismissing some new condemnation proceedings started recently by the N.C. Department of Transportation against some landowners in the beltway segment planned between Reidsville and New Walkertown roads. Those new condemnation proceedings were started as part of the state’s effort to acquire land for that beltway segment, which is scheduled to go to contract this fall....

BREWER, Maine — When Ken and Jo-Ann Arbo moved into their home in Eddington 22 years ago, they thought they found the perfect place to live.“I hunt right there. I fish out there. I snowmobile out there,” Ken Arbo said of the woods and fields near the couple’s home. “That is why we moved out there.”Now the Arbos face the real possibility of moving again.Their Lambert Road home is within the path of the controversial I-395/Route 9 connector, a proposed two-lane road from Brewer to Eddington meant to ease heavy truck traffic and improve safety on nearby routes 46 and...

In oral arguments Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the government defend its kleptocratic behavior while administering an indefensible law. The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 is among the measures by which New Dealers tried and failed to regulate and mandate America back to prosperity. Seventy-eight years later, it is the government’s reason for stealing Marvin and Laura Horne’s raisins. New Dealers had bushels of theories, including this: In an economic depression, prices fall, so a recovery will occur when government compels prices to stabilize above where a free market would put them. So Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “brains trust”...

The public’s love affair with Martin’s Beach and efforts to reopen the contested property earned another supporter Tuesday as Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law requiring the wealthy owner to negotiate open access or potentially face a piece of his land being seized by the state. Just hours before the deadline Tuesday, Brown signed state Sen. Jerry Hill’s Senate Bill 968 to force Vinod Khosla and the State Lands Commission to iron out a compromise that will reinstate access to the crescent shaped strip of coast south of Half Moon Bay. If negotiations fail by Jan. 1, 2016, the SLC...

AUSTIN — The ceremony was brief and drew few mourners, but the Trans Texas Corridor is finally dead. The Senate unanimously passed a bill that strikes from state law any language, reference and authority once connected to the massive highway envisioned to slice a swath through Texas. The same measure already has passed the House. There are some minor differences that still need to be reconciled, but the bill is expected to go to Gov. Rick Perry, who will have to decide whether to join in the final rites for his once-prized project. Legislators did keep a provision that was...

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 16, 2011, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Phoenix, Arizona. TO BEGIN, consider one of the most important measures of property, the kilogram. It’s a measure of mass or, for non-scientific purposes, weight. According to the papers last week, a global scramble is under way to define this most basic unit after it was discovered that the standard kilogram—a cylinder of platinum and iridium that is maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures—has been losing mass. You may think that this is impossible. Of all the...

RALEIGH — At a press conference Tuesday, environmental activist and celebrity Erin Brockovich offered a rambling defense of the state’s efforts to take control of four central North Carolina hydroelectric dams between Salisbury and Badin owned and operated by Alcoa Power Generating Inc. “My job here today is not to sit here and bash Alcoa,” Brockovich said at a briefing that took place before an invitation-only event for state lawmakers at the exclusive Capitol City Club. “Agencies, industries, and attorneys need to get together collectively and do what’s right by people,” she added. “It’s time to … give back, and...

The fact that we have been ignored so long means other methods are required. http://boycottgm.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/boycott-general-motors-for-the-sake-of-america/ That is the link to a petition to Congress saying we will boycott GM products until the company is back in private hands. What more do they need to know? so little has been said about how Obama's thuggery violates the takings provisions of the 5th amendment. Since the cretinoids we voted in can't get a clue, we start here.

For Dale Allee, a second-generation cattle rancher in southern Colorado, the idiom that nothing is certain but death and taxes is now a reality. "I just turned 80 last week. You know what that means? That means I'm not going to be around here very long, and somebody's going to have to pay those taxes," said Allee, who fears federal estate taxes will thwart his plans to pass his 4,200-acre Pueblo County ranch to his children. Land-rich but cash poor, Western ranchers are lobbying Washington to exempt them from the estate tax, which can force heirs to sell their inheritance...

Takings cases linger Appeals opinion could cost $15M By TIMOTHY O'HARA AND ROB BUSWEILER Citizen Staff Monroe County may have to spend at least $15 million to buy nearly a dozen pieces of Florida Keys properties because the government's land-use regulations rendered them undevelopable, according to a court opinion issued Wednesday. The 3rd District Court of Appeals decision overturns two property-rights cases, one that favored Monroe County and one that favored the city of Marathon, both rendered by 16th Judicial Circuit Judge David Audlin. In the former, Audlin ruled against Thomas Collins and 10 other property owners who sued the...

The compensatory ruling from the Court of Claims in the Fifth Amendment Takings case of grazer Wayne Hage was finaly handed down after 17 years. Hage's heirs were awarded $4,220,431.20 plus interest from time of Takings plus attorney costs. Property takings on so called federal land included: improvements of springs and wells; water use rights; roads; fences; irrigation ditches. Takings for cattle impoundment and taking of the "entire ranch" were denied. The 18 page ruling should be posted on the Stewards of the Range website soon. https://www.stewards.us/

<p>BOULDER -- A warning for property owners. A little-known law could allow a trespasser to take your property without paying a penny for it.</p>

IN A WEEK that saw real-estate tax increases go out to hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians, we learned that John Street failed to pay real-estate bills sent out by the government he heads. In a Philly first, he seemed to be dissing himself. In Monday's Daily News, Chris Brennan revealed that Street didn't pay real-estate taxes going back to 2004 on two of four properties he owns in North Philadelphia.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 It has long been recognized that those on the political left are more articulate than their opponents. The words they choose for the things they are for or against make it easy to decide whether to be for or against those things. Are you for or against "social justice"? A no-brainer. Who is going to be for injustice? What about "a living wage"? Who wants people not to have enough money to live on? Then there is "affordable housing" and "affordable health care." Who would want people to be unable to afford to put a roof...

In this article, the ITSSD examines whether the Western Governors' Clean Energy Plan, which is intended to terminate the phantom menace known as global warming, is actually another back-door’ environmental regulatory ‘takings’ regime that will benefit some at the expense of others.

Judgment day on eminent domain The state Senate Judiciary Committee today likely will vote on several measures that would curb alarming abuses of eminent domain by California cities and redevelopment agencies. Local governments routinely take property from homeowners and small-business owners and transfer it to large corporations that promise a huge tax windfall to cities that are willing to trample on property rights. A U.S. Supreme Court decision in June - Kelov. City of New London(Conn.) - ruled in favor of such takings, but the public backlash has spurred efforts in most states, including California, to put some limits on...

A Supreme Property Rights Disaster In The Making More Kelo on the SCOTUS horizon?... [James S. Burling] 8/15/05 After a term marked by the Supreme Court’s utter contempt for property rights, those of us who happen to think there is something special about allowing old widows to keep their homes were not prepared for an even more bitter defeat. Yet, that is what President Bush handed us with the nomination of John Roberts. The battle over property rights is not a conservative versus liberal thing. It’s more a struggle between those who believe in the power of the state to...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) probably won't take her place among the great economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman as a conservative hero. Actually, she never will. But the famously fire-breathing left-wing congresswoman from Los Angeles has emerged in recent weeks as one of the nation's most outspoken defenders of property rights. "Government should be in the business of protecting private property," she told me in an interview, sounding every bit a member of the free-market group the Club for Growth. "Private property is precious in America." What has galvanized Waters and a surprising left-right coalition in defense of private...

Michael Cristofaro, one of the Connecticut homeowners on the losing end of the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing a city government to seize residents' property for a private development, says his family and the six others are not about to give up their fight. Michael Cristofaro "If all fails, we'll chain ourselves to our houses," Cristofaro told "Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily RadioActive." "They'll have to rip us apart from it. We'll fight them tooth and nail." Cristofaro's family has lived in New London, Conn., for 43 years, but the 5-4 ruling last week allows the city to push ahead with its...