WSJ: Connecticut Tea Party -- The Kelo Effect: A moratorium on takings of private property

Wall Street Journal ^ | July 19, 2005 | Editorial (full text)

[OESY]

Homeowners in New London, Connecticut got a temporary reprieve last week when state legislators declared a moratorium on takings of private property while they consider how to revise the law on eminent domain. The state assembly could meet in special session as early as this month.

Call it the Kelo effect. A few weeks after the Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. New London that local governments have more or less unlimited power to seize private property, Connecticuters aren't the only citizens who want to make sure they can't be evicted from homes and businesses in order to make way for private economic development. A grassroots movement has sprung up across the country.

It's instructive to watch how quickly politicians can react when they want to. In Connecticut, where Democrats control both houses of the state assembly, a Republican-sponsored bill to forbid the taking of private homes for private economic development failed as recently as three weeks ago. Yet last week Speaker of the House James Amann was quoted on the need for a law that "offers homeowners some peace of mind." Mr. Amann represents Milford, whose aldermen recently voted unanimously to prevent the city from using eminent domain to take property for private development.

As for Governor Jodi Rell, a Republican, when we called her office a few days after the Kelo ruling, a spokesman talked about the need "to strike a right balance between property rights and economic development." Last week, Ms. Rell issued a press release calling eminent domain "the 21st century equivalent of the Boston Tea Party." This time, she said, "it is not a monarch wearing robes in England we are fighting; it is five robed justices at the Supreme Court in Washington."

[OESY]

"The system of private property
is the most important guaranty of freedom,
not only for those who own property,
but scarcely less for those who do not."

-- Fredrich August von Hayek, (1899-1992)
Nobel Laureate of Economic Sciences 1974

[muawiyah]

The people of Connecticut still need to haul all their elected officials out into the streets and tar and feather them anyway.

Their efforts to steal private property to give to their friends should not go unpunished.

[the invisib1e hand]

what happens when Kelo meets Waco?

[andie74]

Still can't help to think what a waste of time and money this is, albeit necessary. IF the Supreme Court had interpreted the Constitution in a strict way, we wouldn't have this problem.

Thankfully, CT is addressing it. I love the Kelo effect.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

The solution is simple. Determine who in the state legislature votes to support the taking of private property to be given by the state to another private entity, publicly call those politicians immoral and vote them out of office in the next election. Then shun them around town making certain they are cleared identified to children as immoral people who countenance theft of private property until they either die or move away.

[Noachian]

A grassroots movement has sprung up across the country.

The Kelo case has done more harm to the integrity of the Supreme Court, and the judiciary in general, than any other case in modern times. Even abortion, with its mass killings, hasn't had the effect of Kelo. Which is another way of saying that Americans value their personal property more than the lives of the unborn.

That the elitist judges who live in a different universe are now being rebuffed at the grassroots level is good; that nothing is being done to make sure they don't further erode the Constitution is bad.

The judges who sit on the Court, and make decisions that effect all of our lives, are considered by most to be sacrosanct. They aren't. Until people treat judges like the politicians they are our rights will continue to be eroded.

[carumba]

Then things are whacko.

[the invisib1e hand]

Then things are whacko.

ba da bing!

[jocon307]

"Which is another way of saying that Americans value their personal property more than the lives of the unborn."

I think you are unduly critical of Americans in what you say. There is a big difference, even under Roe nobody is FORCED to have an abortion, under Kelo one can be forced to surrender their real property, so that is a big difference.

[goldstategop]

When Democrats and RINOs are scurrying for political cover in the wake of Kelo it means one thing: the political water for socialism has gotten too hot to push it further.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[goldstategop]

Yep, that's true. And under Roe the argument is a women's body shouldn't be subject to government interference. Its a good classical liberal argument even if you loathe abortion on principle. Its the woman's personal decision. Kelo on the other hand is nothing but pure fascist government land-grabbing. And not even for the state - but for corporate interests.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[jocon307]

"And under Roe the argument is a women's body shouldn't be subject to government interference."

That's a good point. Whatever did happen to all that "your own concept of the Universe" stuff so recently invoked to re-affirm the right to abortion and even sodomy (unless I'm mistaken)? But thrown right out with the bathwater if your concept of the universe includes not selling your home and/or smoking pot (for medicinal purposes only of course!).

[GOPJ]

bump

[Noachian]

I think you are unduly critical of Americans in what you say.

I don't think so. Consider that abortion is both a moral issue and a constitutional issue. Depriving someone of life was not, I'm sure, what the Framers had in mind. But, let's just consider the moral implications of mass killings as opposed to the taking of property.

While it's true that no one is "forced" to have an abortion, and there are grassroots efforts to put a stop to it, no Supreme Court ruling has so touched the modern American psyche as the threat to personal property. It's also true that only a small percentage of people will have their property seized for eminent domain purposes, yet the grassroots protests are everywhere. Why? Because it's immoral to take property as well as being unconstitutional.

So, we have a moral question on two subjects: taking property and baby killing.

On balance you'd think there would be huge grassroots efforts on both, and that killing babies, and throwing their remains in the trash, would arose the general public more than it did if for no other reason than the morality of the situation. But, that never happened did it?

So, I think I have it right when I say that "...Americans value their personal property more than the lives of the unborn."

Just because something isn't forced on someone doesn't make it either right or moral, and those who look the other way when the law flaunts its moral duties have a small measure of responsibility.

[traviskicks]

Aritcles, quotes, commentary on kelo
http://www.neoperspectives.com/scotuspropertythieving.htm

[steve-b]

While it's true that no one is "forced" to have an abortion, and there are grassroots efforts to put a stop to it, no Supreme Court ruling has so touched the modern American psyche as the threat to personal property.

This is why the property-rights wing of conservatism is more critical than the social-morality wing.

Anybody can simply refuse to have an abortion, read pornography, engage in sodomy, etc, without the aid of a single politician. However, one can't simply refuse to pay excessive taxes, follow onerous regulations, turn one's property over to politically-connected developers, etc -- the police will come for you and the government will take what it wants anyway... unless property-rights conservatives/libertarians have enough political power to put a stop to it.

[nutmeg]

Connecticut ping!

Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.

[Vicomte13]

"IF the Supreme Court had interpreted the Constitution in a strict way, we wouldn't have this problem."

I don't know...
The Bill of Rights applies to the federal government, not the states. CONGRESS can't take land, except for public use and with just compensation, according to the Fifth Amendment as originally intended. It doesn't say anything at all about the states.

The 14th Amendment says only that the states can't take property without due process. It doesn't copy the 5th Amendment's "public use" language, and it doesn't copy the "just compensation" language either.

It seems to me that a strict constructionist or originalist would have to say that the Constitution's taking's clause simply doesn't apply to the states, and it's a matter for state law to decide.

Indeed, why was this case even allowed in Federal court? It's a state issue between citizens of a state and state government. Where's the federal issue at all?

Now, if one believes in a "living document" and thinks that the court should try to get the "right result" (nobody likes the taking of homes), the the Supreme Court ought to have created a homeowner's rule that applied to all the states out of whole cloth. There's no way a strict constructionist could honestly do that. An originalist, of course, could fall back on the lack of takings in that earlier era and then argue that this was meant to be national law. But that's not strict construction.

Seems to me the decision is very unpleasant, but it's not bad law. The Supremes said that it's a state law issue.
And that's actually right. It is.

[IronChefSakai]

"IF the Supreme Court had interpreted the Constitution in a strict way, we wouldn't have this problem."

I disagree with your opinion on this statement. The Bill of Rights does not apply to the federal government. It is a list of guarantees to the people that limits the government's power, in recognizing that rights/privilages/power flows from god to the people to the government. When quoting from the 5th amendment, one must keep in mind that when our country was formed, it was established upon a REPUBLIC, therefore there would be no need to mention of THE STATE taking private land for public use since the states were to be in charge of their own affairs. The federal government was needed to make peace/war, tax, coin money, and a few other issues of which are not related to the taking of private land.

The 14th amendment was written after the Civil War as a way of ensuring that the federal government respected the choices and rights of the states and did not wish to interfere with thier political processes. That is why it doesnt copy the 5th amendment word for word... it was already stated in the Bill of Rights and was just being reinforced through another amendment to placate any uneasiness that the states may have had toward the federal govt.

As a strict constitutionalist, I would have to say that the Constitution's taking clause DOES apply to the states for the reasons mentioned in my first paragraph.

I may, however, agree with you in that this should have not been a Supreme Court issue. According to Article III of the Constitution:
"In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and THOSE IN WHICH A STATE SHALL BE A PARTY, the Supreme Court shall have originial jurisdiction."
This was an issue of Kelo v. NEW LONDON and as such should have been settled by the State Supreme Court.

That's my $0.02.