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Actually you are once again wrong - but not for the reason you think.

Well, I'm game...

Your cute attempt to skewer the poster with his "logic" is actually logical - but open to discussion and research. Did the Government, under the enumerated powers clause, have the authority to enter into this contract? I don't know - haven't done the research.

I looked under the various enumerated powers, and building dams and irrigation works is NOT listed.

If you are truly willing to finally admit that the Constitution is a limiting document which specifically limits Federal Power by only authorizing that which is specifically enumerated therein then you have made much progress in your understanding of the document.

It does limit Federal power--but not as much as some of the hyper-strict constructionists would have us believe, as we are not constrained to a late-18th-century state of common law. Common law, IMNHO, boils down to common sense application of first principles to a specific problem, whether that problem is an old one or a new one. Said limitations on Federal power are still fairly strict.

I doubt that you have come to accept that truth and believe you are merely adopting that position for the sake of tweaking the posters to this thread.

I am arguing the logical consequences of the argument presented.

But I digress...back to your quote that I posted and why it is wrong. Under contract law - at equity - the remedy in this case, assuming arguendo, that the government did not have authority to enter into the contract to begin with (again, I'm not taking a position on that issue), where the other party has fully performed on their part of the contract, is to force the Government to perform on it's part of the contract.

Then the plaintiffs should stick to the contract law end of affairs and not wander off into Constitutional matters that can be applied against their case. They raised it; that means that if they draw a "watermelon" judge (green on the outside, pink on the inside), it can and will be used against them.

If the plaintiff raises a basic question about whether the Government has the authority to enter into the contract, then there

The farmers may very well have a right to the water. The question they've inadvertently raised is "do they have a right to said water on John Q. Taxpayer's dime?"

If such a remedy gives rise to causes of action to other parties then the contract and the Court's ruling is admissible in those actions for monetary damages against the government to the aggrieved parties.

What you have to realize is that the left will cheerfully use a strict-construction argument if it advances their particular agenda. Therefore, avoid raising arguments that can be used in this fashion.

As for monetary damages...what if the damaged party demands his land be returned to him for his use, enjoyment, and disposition?

A contract-law argument is sound, and the argument should stay there. Raising issues external to the viable argument is not a

So, any way you hash it, legitimate contract or exercise of extra-Constitutional power, the Government would be forced to live up to the terms of the orginal contract which it has not done to date....Regards.

Regards yourself. For the record, I am not fond of federal water management in any guise, because it tends to (a) centralize local issues (water management is not a national-level matter), (b) opens the door for massive fraud, waste, and abuse, and (c) sets a bad precedent elsewhere.