Posted on 06/23/2005 8:07:27 AM PDT by Stew Padasso
Supreme Court rules cities may seize homes
HOPE YEN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights.
Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.
"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including - but by no means limited to - new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.
The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.
City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
You know nothing in this regard, sir.
So true. But then there's always "public housing" (Gag!!)
Another thought. If the government is now in the business of confiscating private property at will, how about we begin with the Kennedy compounds. Hillary's house, bought an paid for by the American taxpayers anyhow. Just think...hospices, homes for abused children, drug rehabilitation centers. You could come up with more ideas. Don't you think my list provides better use of the property in the public interest?
If you think that anything close to 1/3 of our current population would support a revolution over the issue of eminent domain, you need to think again. You might interest .5%, but that would be a stretch, I think.
Talk of revolution over this issue is simply nonsense, especially since there are legal remedies that are much easier.
Let's say a state has an element in its consitution that prohibits eminent domain from being used to take any property for the use of any private enterprise. This SCOTUS ruling has nothing to say about that.
Does your state have such an element? No? Then there's your fight. Make it happen.
How about your city? Do they have an ordinance prohibiting such uses of eminent domain? No? There's another battle for you. Your County? Same thing.
It's a lot easier to get people to move in this way over an issue like this one than it is to get them to take up arms, don't you think?
Has Dubya commented yet? How does this ruling jibe with his "ownership society"?
Suffice it to say that the MacLaines make Lincoln Chaffee look like a Bircher. The guy who must have been fooled was the wonderful New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thompson who made Souter NH Attorney General in which the little termite played at being a conservative for public consumption. If I know this, having lived long in Connecticut but not New Hampshire, the Bush the Elder knew it through the New Hampshire plitical grapevine. He certainly knew who the MacLaines are/were.
It also suggests that Sununu the Elder was an absolute phony as a conservative because he had been governor of New Hampshire while Malcolm was Concord mayor and Susan was a state senator.
Any links to the dissenting judges opinions?
To recap the solutions:
1. Back a constitional amendment against eminent domain.
2. Back state constitutional amendments against it.
3. Some in the media on our side.
4. I guess... join with the DUmmies to fight it...? (History in the making here...)
Yep that'd stop em...classify em ! But wait... I have already classified most polidiots , judicial jugglers , presstitutes and their handlers as terrorists and they continue to get ..........paid ?!?!??
Lables and unconstitutional laws effect only those who let em. Woe be the beancountin bastard that casts a shadow on my porch on a mission to steal my home.
Just my opinion of course........for now.
"Actually, I'm a woman. And my neighbors don't care. I'm also un-electable. But your point is well-taken. It must be a grass-roots effort."
Even then the DUers are shocked, shocked I tell you, that Liberal judges voted for this. Who the heck did they THINK would approve it? Afterall Hillary's common good is at stake.
DUh.
and therein lies the rub. It totally opens the door for corruption, or "kickbacks", if you will..and also not quite up-to-market manipulation of real estate...because even if you refuse the "offer" it doesn't matter. You are pretty much stuck w/ whatever they want to give you, so that some a-hole w/ millions can build luxury apartments on your land. :o) smile pretty for the camera. yay.
If this were the only issue where the government was broken you'd have a point.
Wow. This may very well be the most universally unpopular Supreme Court decision ever. Even on DU they are all beside themselves with rabid opposition. An MSNBC online poll has 98% Opposed.
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