Posted on 06/23/2005 10:50:00 PM PDT by andie74
In "House of Cards" (Orange County Register, 2/27/05), Steven Greenhut worries that the U.S. Supreme Court will make yet another of its colossal blunders--this time damaging the Constitution's important provision on eminent domain. Due to an epidemic of instances where municipal, state and federal governments have taken private property from a private owner to deliver over to another private party, one of these cases, Kelo v. City of New London (Conn.), finally has found its way to the Supreme Court.
Not that this is a new subject for the Supremes. It was in 1954, when the Court upheld an urban renewal plan in Washington, DC, which transferred private property to new private owners, justifying the transfer on the basis of neighborhood "blight." As Greenhut writes, since then government officials have kept pushing the envelope to justify "taking property from Peter and giving it to Paul."
Greenhut is author of a timely book on the subject, Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain. He attended the recent Supreme Court session where arguments were presented in the case of Kelo and he is not optimistic about the Court's forthcoming opinion that is due this summer. He writes:
Any Joe off the street could understand the Fifth Amendment's simple words. No person shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of the law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." So, the government cannot kill you, imprison you or take your stuff without giving you a chance to make your case, and it can take your stuff only for a public use. And it must pay you a fair price for it. Yet the justices, like those medieval scholars who argued about the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin, seemed to be focused on irrelevancies and unable to grasp the fundamental issues.
He describes questions raised by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in which she appeared to be leaning in the direction of the bureaucrats of New London, who desire to clear away homes and small businesses on waterfront land to give to the Pfizer pharmaceutical company for a research center and upscale condominiums. Last year, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city of new London. Greenhut writes:
Nothing in this case in any way questions the ability of government to take property for a genuinely "public use," such as a road, hospital, prison or school. For the longest time, the courts had no trouble distinguishing a road from a chain store. And, excuse me for noticing, shouldn't the justices be more concerned about the civil liberties of individuals than about inconveniences placed on the government?
The city, of course, expects to glean enormous revenues from such a venture, many more times the amount of dollars now coming from the land's current residents.
The Cato Institute filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the current homeowners. In "Robin Hood in Reverse: The Case Against Economic Development Takings" [Cato Executive Summary 535], Ilya Somin traces the consequences of the Michigan Supreme Court's notorious 1981 Poletown decision, where the homes of several thousand residents were condemned.
Its notoriety stemmed from the massive scale and seeming callousness of Detroit’s use of eminent domain: destroying an entire neighborhood and condemning the homes of 4,200 people, as well as numerous businesses, churches, and schools, so the land could be transferred to General Motors for the construction of a new factory. Aside from the moral and humanitarian concerns at issue, Poletown raised the fear that if "economic development" could justify such massive dislocation, it could be used to rationalize almost any condemnation that benefited a private business in a way that might "bolster the economy."
For years, the Poletown decision stood as a beacon of hope for land developers, as one city after another capitulated to corporate demands, clearing away homes and businesses, while citing the Poletown case. However, last year, the Michigan Supreme Court did the unthinkable, and overturned the 1981Poletown decision. In Kelo, the case now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the City of New London had relied on the Poletown precedent to justify its takings. Much is at stake in this case, and Somin writes:
If the Court decides in favor of the homeowners, the resulting decision will constrain economic development condemnations nationwide. Federal and state courts should ban economic development takings. Such takings are usually the product of collusion between large and powerful interests and government officials against comparatively powerless local residents. They generally produce far more costs than benefits, as the Poletown case dramatically demonstrates. Finally, the economic development rationale renders nearly all property rights insecure because it can justify virtually any taking that benefits a private business interest.
Somin raises some interesting points in regard to actual economic benefits. Since there is no binding obligation to actually provide the promised revenues and employment, there is a great incentive for developers to acquire land "on the cheap" through eminent domain. She writes:
In some cases, this could even lead to the use of "bait and switch" tactics under which the new owners need not use the condemned property for the originally intended purpose at all. Such incentives greatly increase the likelihood that economic development takings will lead to abuse. . . .
The Poletown condemnations dramatically illustrate the danger of taking inflated estimates of economic benefit at face value. The City of Detroit and GM claimed that the construction of a new plant on the expropriated property would create some 6,150 jobs. The estimate of "at least 6,000 jobs" was formally endorsed by both Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and GM Chairman Thomas Murphy. Yet neither the city nor GM had any legal obligation to actually provide the 6,000 jobs or the other economic benefits they had promised. The danger inherent in this arrangement was apparent even at the time. . . .
The same problem is evident in other states that permit economic development takings. The Kelo case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court is remarkably similar to Poletown in this respect. As the dissenting opinion in Kelo points out, "[t]here are no assurances of a public use in the development plan [under which the owners' property was condemned]; there was no signed development agreement at the time of the takings; and all of the evidence suggests that the economic climate will not support the project so that the public benefits can be realized." . . .
Both business interests and political leaders dependent on their support have tremendous incentives to overestimate the economic benefits of projects furthered by condemnation. Courts are in a poor position to second-guess seemingly plausible financial and employment estimates provided by officials. Yet even if governments and businesses do not engage in deliberate deception, there is a natural tendency to overestimate the public benefits and the likelihood of success of projects that advance one’s own private interests.
Steven Greenhut goes on to express his concerns about what he perceived during the U.S. Supreme Court session on Kelo. He writes that Justice David Souter did not seem to grasp the basic precepts at stake in Kelo, or understand that the case is "about the transfer of private property from homeowners and small business owners to big business."
Greenhut reports that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg apparently did not see anything unfavorable about this use of eminent domain, as she declared that the city of New London was only trying to "build [the city] up and get more jobs." The tone of questions and remarks by O'Connor, Souder and Ginsburg lead Greenhut to wonder how any of the Justices can fail to understand that "the Constitution -- the document the high court is supposed to defend and interpret -- is about protecting individuals from the government, not about protecting the government's interests."
At the moment, things look bleak for the homeowners and small businesses in hundreds of regions in the country that are targeted by large corporations. (In Michigan alone, over a recent four-year period, at least 138 condemnation proceedings were filed, with 173 more held in abeyance.) The coming Supreme Court decision might make the picture even bleaker.
This is a fabulous editorial that is well documented.
This ruling is a travesty. So much for "life, liberty and property." The latter two have just been annihilated.
Well, and if forfeiture is legal, who says that a crime cannot be trumped up on you by your local government to force you out REGARDLESS of their eminent domain "rights"?
There are five US Neoprene Court Injustices whose properties should be commandeered (after "just" compensation, of course) to create DETENTION CENTERS to hold illegal aliens prior to deportation! They can stick that in their pipes and smoke it! Those Injustices are OLD, but they are not "Old School" by any definition of the term...
Just when we thought we couldn't lose any more Freedoms, we did!
We need to start impeaching the judges.
The anti-religious groups will start going after the churches; wait and see.
Time to contact the president and tell him we want a U.S. Supreme Court nominee that is a STRICT Constitutionalist. President's comment line is 202-456-1111; fax 202-456-2461; e-mail president@whitehouse.gov
Hell yes.
Um, they are COMPENSATING one for their property.
Time was Government just took the land..
How about a constitutional amendment securing private property?
Well, here is the deal...if the area is underdeveloped or not up to an arbitrary city standard (i.e. doesn't produce enough property/sales tax revenue), what is to compensate?
Bad, bad decision. I just posted Kennedy's concurring statement here.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1429522/posts
Well, the first amendment is supposed to enusre that that doesn't happen, but after today, all bets are off.
Between this and the Supremes' ruling on medical pot that trumped state rights, well, so much for a constitutional republic.
The left has proven once more to hypocritcally support the ultra rich in the enslavement of the poor. After all, it's not the poor neighborhoods who will be helped, its them who will be bulldozed.
How well padded their pocketbooks must be right now...
What a great opportunity to get rid of Ginsburg.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1574059&mesg_id=1574059
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1575546&mesg_id=1575546
DU, of all places, doesn't like the ruling.
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Get busy people.
Cut them off at the knees.
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Bury them. Every last one.
Shut them down.
If a mayor, or any politician forces any homeowner in your town to give up their home so they can get higher taxes, vote them out of office.
If they bulldoze homes to build a mall, boycott the mall.
If they bulldoze homes to build an apartment complex, don't rent from that complex.
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