Posted on 12/04/2006 10:57:41 AM PST by spintreebob
Is this Shopping Center Blighted?
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The tenants are mainly successful entrepreneurs with booming business
The Village of Arlington Heights, Illinois is voting to seize the International Plaza Shopping Center, by eminent domain, in order to transfer ownership to a private developer who plans to build a SuperTarget. This will significantly hurt and, in many instances, put out of business over 70 tenants in the shopping center.
How can they do this? The only legal way is to declare the property "blighted," which they have done. Despite the fact that the center was 98% leased when declared "blighted," and is one of the more attractive shopping centers in Arlington Heights, they have declared it "blighted" so that they can attract a tenant (Target) who will bring in more tax revenue.
In Your vote, indicate where you live, and whether or not you have seen this property
Well, if the city fathers think it needs their pet project, it will be considered a "blight" by them. However, this center doesn't look much different than any other strip in Northern Virginia or Maryland.
Remember, folks: the strict constructionist view is that the Constitution applies to the federal government, not to the states. The feds can't do this, but the states can unless the state constitution says otherwise.
No, the Federal BoR trumps the states.
I think Target is a blight.
my guess is that 'unblighted' is now defined as being over 98% leased.
You wrote: "No, the Federal BoR trumps the states."
That is only true because the Supreme Court said so. It was not the original intent.
The Supreme Court also very clearly said, in the Kelo decision, that the states have the power to do what is being done here with eminent domain.
One cannot argue that the Bill of Rights applies to the states, but that Kelo is unconstitutional, because the only reason the Bill of Rights applies to the states is because the Supreme Court said so. So, if the Supreme Court had the authority to make that decision, deciding where the line lay in the first place, it had the authority to decide Kelo: that states can take property by eminent domain to increase tax revenue, and that this is a "public purpose".
One can argue that the Supreme Court decision is bad in a moral sense, but one cannot argue that the Supremes had the power to extend the Bill of Rights to the states, but not the power to decide the contours of that extension.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
ChicagoLady; DMZFRank
Great to see you at TapRoot. Kuksool, wanderer, we missed you at TapRoot.
Our friend Terry Parke and (not) Cheryl Axley lost. Let's target those normally Republican areas NOW and build for 2008.
This Eminent Domain situation is an issue around which we can build. International Plaza is truly international with LEGAL immigrants from many nations (The building owner is from Korea.)
Tactically, it is necessary for the anti-illegals to separate more clearly LEGAL from ILLEGAL. By supporting the legals in this shopping center is one way to do it.
Stephen Bachtell and Leo Polotki (sp?) are the businessmen leaders with the full support of the building owner who also has one of the businesses, and the support of almost all of the business tenants.
Robert Janczak is one of our friends running for village trustee with this as a key issue (along with the Eminent Domain abuse in downtown Arlington Hts.
Please go to the blog and post support. Please drive by International Plaza, North Side of Golf Rd, just east of Arlington Hts Rd. Stop in at the CAMERA REPAIR business and he will direct you to the other activists in the shopping center.
TRG, this is no spin
Illinois Constitution:
SECTION 15. RIGHT OF EMINENT DOMAIN
Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation as provided by law. Such compensation shall be determined by a jury as provided by law.
How come we never see outrageous jury awards against cities for seizing property like we do against tobacco, drug & other companies. All it takes is for one jury to award, say $150 million and this crap will dry up and blow away.
WRONG, Vicomte; Very, very, very wrong.
The 9th amendment reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Also, the 4th amendment is not limited to the states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
Also, the 14th amendment specifically broadens all rights given the people to be protected from the federal government also apply to the state governments: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The phrase "without the due process of law" does not mean that a legislature can remove such rights so long as it passes a law; any law must be constitutional.
At issue in this debate is the "takings clause" which establishes that government can sieze property for the "public benefit." The argument advanced by conservatives in favor of New London was that a larger tax base favors the public at large. The opposition argues that the takings clause is primarily concerned with prohibiting takings, and the "public benefit" clause merely allows certain takings, and that New London's concept of "public benefit" is so broad that it allows any and all takings so long as the government feels it is a good idea. The opposition holds that takings for a "public benefit" must benefit the public directly.
I would hold that the third and fourth amendments, and common law itself (which the Bill of Rights was held to be merely an enunciation of, as attested to by the 9th amendment) make clear that New London (And Arlington Village)'s interpretation is not possible, since they would override it.
Usually when the government is involved it's a bench trial, not a jury trial. Sovereigns are immune to prosecution, except to the extent they let themselves be prosecuted. Government doesn't let juries decide disputes with government.
It only allows officials of the government (judges) to arbitrate the disputes.
Not to mention that an award like that would come right out of the pockets of the city residents, in the form of increased taxes. Cities have no source of income beyond taxpayer money in one form or another.
The original intent of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, was to limit Federal power. It was not directed at the states, but at the federal government. The concern of the Founders was that the Federal Government would become the new Crown. It was a legitimate fear, because that is effectively what happened with the Union victory in the Civil War.
Anyway, there are a few restraints on the states written into the Constitution, but the Founders certainly did not envision binding the hands of the states whne the passed the Bill of Rights. It was aimed at the Feds.
With the Union victory in the Civil War, and the necessity of changing the Constitution to override the ability of states to determine what property was - at least when it came to people - and to override states' ability to decide that blacks wouldn't have the same rights as whites - the Constitution was amended three times in the mid-to-late 1860s.
The Southern states, especially, resistant treating the bfreed slaves as free and equal citizens, and so federal power was applied ever more strongly, and the Bill of Rights applied more and more to the states. This has continued to our day.
Obviously this has been necessary.
But we need to be very, very clear, because the strict constructionist view is vogue on the right, and strict construction/originalism CACANNOT be allowed to simply become a subterfuge for "whatever conservatives want", a right-wing form of the judicial activism of the left.
The Bill of Rights CLEARLY did not apply to the States.
THhe 9th Amendment says that, to be sure, but it does not say that the states can't take property by eminent domain: they can. The recourse against these abuses in 1789 would have been against the state, and political within the state. The recourse TODAY is to federal court, because the 14th Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to apply to the States too. That's all well and good, but if one takes the interpretive approach, then one finds that in Kelo the Supreme Court applied its interpretive power again, and didn't find federal power in the Constitution to overrule the states on eminent domain takings for tax base reasons. If one wants to go back to 1789, the federal courts don't even have JURISDICTION to hear eminent domain cases; one must go to state acourt and argue it under the state constitution.
My PERSONAL view? There's a difference between private homes and commercial property. Taking private homes for other private use, as in Kelo, is PARTICULARLY odious. The SupremE Court said it's a state matter, so this movement to get state constitutions to block this sort of thing is the answer. There isn't a recourse in federal court. The Supreme Court has already said that what Illinois is doing here, it can do. It's up to the people of Illinois to stop it.
Americans worship the idol of "The Rule of Law".
The highest authority in America is The Law.
When push comes to shove, Americans always turn to The Law.
No matter how bad the law is, no substantial number of Americans will organize to break it.
"I would settle for judges that didn't break them, or write new ones from the bench."
But that's utterly interpretive.
What is "Breaking the law", in a judge?
The US system doesn't give a politically satisfactory answer to that.
So what it comes down to is that when a court decides something that people don't like, they scream that the judge has broken the Constitution itself, the law, as though the Constitution is particularly clear, and can work without interpretation. The complaint starts to sound very much like: I don't like what the judge did, and therefore it's illegal.
The English Commmon Law system on which American law is founded is BASED on judges writing new law from the bench. That's what the cases are. Every case establishes the law for the facts in that case, and then the highest judges review the cases and their opinion becomes the law...unless they're overridden by the legislature or Constitutional Amendment, or by the highest court changing its mind in the future. That's the way our legal system has always worked. It's never been any other way.
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