Free Republic

After 50 years, fire still burns under Pa. town (A motorist in 2004 drives among the smoldering remains of land near Route 61 in Centralia, Pa. AP file photo) Fifty years ago Sunday, a fire at the town dump ignited an exposed coal seam, setting off a chain of events that eventually led to the demolition of nearly every building in Centralia — a whole community of 1,400 simply gone. All these decades later, the Centralia fire still burns. It also maintains its grip on the popular imagination, drawing visitors from around the world who come to gawk at twisted,...

The U.S. Senate has approved of a $109 billion bill that provides two years of funding for transportation and transit projects around the country. The bill may or may not be taken up by the U.S. House Representatives depending on if they choose to write a separate House bill, but hopefully what will be left out of any final version is an amendment by Montana U.S. Sen. Max Baucus. His amendment funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to the tune of $1.4 billion for fiscal years 2013 and 2014 — quite a jump from the $323 million it...

House votes to overturn Supreme Court decision on eminent domainBy Pete Kasperowicz - 02/28/12 05:19 PM ET The House on Tuesday afternoon approved legislation that overturns a 2005 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the ability of states to take control of private property under the doctrine of eminent domain and hand it to another private developer. That decision, Kelo v. City of New London, led to sharp complaints in particular from Republicans, who argued that the Court ignored the normal "public use" standard. Under that standard, eminent domain was seen as permissible only when the land or property taken would...

Few legal scholars have blown as many minds and impacted as many national arguments as Richard Epstein. His 1985 volume Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain made the controversial argument that zoning, environmental regulations, and other government actions that substantially limit the use or decrease the value of property should be viewed as a form of eminent domain and thus strictly limited by the Constitution. The result was a firestorm of outrage, followed by a trickle of acknowledgment that maybe the guy was onto something. As Epstein told reason in a 1995 interview, “I took some pride...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Some people are warning that the expected sale of the Kansas City International Raceway could lead to a rise in illegal street racing. The city plans to acquire 93 acres of land around the speedway. The track, which has been around since 1967, would be turned into a park. A young driver named Darcie, 17, said racing is a way of life for her. "This gives me self-confidence to do so many other things in my life," she said. "A park isn't going to do that." Some people worry that if people can't race legally on...

Barbour: Initiative 31 bad for business 'It'll cost us a whole lot of jobs,' governor warns Firing back at critics of using eminent domain as a tool for economic development, Gov. Haley Barbour says DeSoto County voters armed with facts shouldn't be afraid to shoot down Initiative 31 on the Tuesday ballot. They should be afraid of the economic impact if the proposal passes: "It'll cost us a whole lot of jobs. It would be felt in DeSoto County and all across the state," he said. "People shouldn't be misled into thinking this will protect their property from eminent domain,"...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin G. Scalia said Tuesday he does not believe the high court's "infamous" Kelo decision of 2005, which held that cities can take land from some residents with compensation and give it to others for economic development, will be lasting law. "I do not think the Kelo decision is long for this world," Scalia said in a speech to Chicago-Kent College of Law. He compared the court's decision in Kelo v. New London, Conn., No. 04-108, to the Dred Scott case, which held that slaves were outside the protection of the U.S. Constitution, and to the...

Roy and Karen Walker's condominium at Lake of the Ozarks fulfilled a retirement dream when the couple bought it nearly a decade ago. The unit overlooking the relatively calm Niangua arm of the lake had everything they wanted. It was near town, right on the shoreline, with an easily accessible boat dock. But proximity to the water has gone from a selling point to liability, their property from asset to albatross. The couple are among thousands of property owners along the lake now stuck in legal limbo after being notified that all or part of their homes, decks, gazebos and...

Reason Magazine featured a great article that chronicles a new twist in the famous Kelo vs. New London case. This landmark case radically increased the size of government under the eminent domain clause by forcing Susette Kelo to leave her house so that the City of New London could use the land for “economic development” in 2005. The new twist comes from a story recounted by a journalist and author Jeff Benedict. Benedict recounts a recent book reading of The Little Pink House (written on the Kelo case) in which Justice Richard N. Palmer, one of the 4 judges who...

If a state Supreme Court judge approaches a journalist at a private dinner and says something newsworthy about an important decision, is the journalist free to publish the statement? I faced that situation at a dinner honoring the Connecticut Supreme Court at the New Haven Lawn Club on May 11, 2010. That night I had delivered the keynote address on the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous 5-4 decision in Kelo v. New London. Susette Kelo was in the audience and I used the occasion to tell her personal story, as documented in my book "Little Pink House."

Should it be any surprise that six years after the horrible landmark Supreme Court's 2005 case Kelo v. City of New London, which brought about the decision that governments could seize private property for the sole reason of "economic development," the Fort Trumbull site in question is today a total dump, where "economic development" by the local government has ceased to ever happen? The Eminent Domain blog, Gideon's Trumpet, points out that the site has sat there for years following the court's decision and has become overgrown with weeds and other vegetation. It is a far cry from the well...

The Kelo vs. New London case saw the Supreme Court expanding the government’s eminent domain powers to include taking property and giving it to other private citizens for the purposes of economic development and enhancing tax revenues. It was a terrible blow to property rights in America. And now, in perhaps a fitting end to the sad chapter in American jurisprudence, the City of New London is now using the property the fought to seize all the way to the Supreme Court as a dumping ground. Video below, and a letter to the editor noting the irony of the city...

In December 2003, Bruce Ratner, a real estate tycoon and part-owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, held a press conference in New York City to announce his latest project, a 22-acre "urban utopia" called the Atlantic Yards. The idea was to transform downtown Brooklyn by erecting 16 office and residential skyscrapers, a luxury 180-room hotel, and a fancy new arena for the Nets. Standing by Ratner's side that day was the architect Frank Gehry, who told the press he was particularly excited "to build a whole neighborhood practically from scratch." It was a revealing statement. After all, the...

...The Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation and the National Federation of Independent Business appeared as “friends of the court”, arguing that placing the amendment to the state constitution on the ballot is permissible under the US Constitution because they claim that it does not change the definition of “public use” or grant new rights to property owners, but rather codifies existing definitions in order to protect property-owners from abuse and provide certainty. Karen Harned, a spokesperson for the NFIB legal center, stated that “"It's one thing for government to take private property for long-standing and well-agreed public uses, but it's just...

...What did the 360 square foot sign, which was visible from two interstates, say? “End Eminent Domain Abuse” Roos, a member of the Missouri Eminent Domain Abuse Commission, had been fighting the city since 2007, when he painted the sign to protest aggressive land-taking by the city government of St. Louis. The initial ruling from the district court held that the city ordinance was content-neutral and therefore acceptable on its face, and Mr. Roos’ work was a “classic example” of a sign. However, the panel of the appeals court found that the ordinance did discriminate based on content, and that...

In the 1850s, on the steps of the Waco courthouse, Wallace Jefferson’s great-great-great-grandfather was sold. Today, Jefferson is chief justice of Texas’s Supreme Court. The governor who nominated him also nominated the state’s first Latina justice. Rick Perry, 61, the longest-serving governor in Texas history and, in his 11th year, currently the nation’s senior governor, says these nominations are two of his proudest accomplishments. French cuffs and cowboy boots are, like sauerkraut ice cream, an eclectic combination, but Perry, who wears both, is a potentially potent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination because his political creed is uneclectic, matching that...

"Conservatives would have to mount a massive, rapid, and high volume effort to get him in. I think such an outpouring of support and requests would draw Perry in. But, to do so, it’d have to be after Daniels and with continued displeasure with the field by conservatives. One of the sticking points has always been whether the country was ready for another guy from Texas so soon after Bush. With Texas’s economy flourishing and the national economy still imploding, I think the country could get ready for another guy from Texas really quick. Daniels is running. How conservatives react...

After months of gassy media speculation about Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie, we’re all near the point of dismissing deus-ex-machina rumors about candidates out of hand.But this one … doesn’t seem so far-fetched. A Texas pol who is close to Perry has been telling a few key strategists that the nation’s longest-serving governor sees a vacuum and is waiting to be summoned into the race. This source believes that could happen by late summer. Without fellow Southerners Haley Barbour or Mike Huckabee in the race — and with Newt Gingrich’s early troubles raising further doubts about the current...

Why oh why are Conservatives getting hoodwinked by this fraud? CAVUTO: You know, the one thing that sticks in the craw of a lot of people with this court, Donald — and I don’t know where you come down on it, but this eminent domain issue that essentially allowed someone’s home to be bulldozed, as was the case in New London, Connecticut, if it gets in the way of developers. Now, you’re a pretty successful developer in your own right. What did you think of that decision? Was the court overdoing it with that decision? TRUMP: Well, it’s sort of...

Don’t be fooled by the Donald. Take it from one who knows: I’m a South Jersey gal who was raised on the outskirts of Atlantic City in the looming shadow of Trump’s towers. All through my childhood, casino developers and government bureaucrats joined hands, raised taxes, and made dazzling promises of urban renewal. Then we wised up to the eminent-domain thievery championed by our hometown faux free-marketeers. America, it’s time you wised up to Donald Trump’s property-redistribution racket, too. Trump has been wooing conservative activists for months and flirting with a GOP presidential run — first at the Conservative Political...

This is called, of course, “eminent domain.” The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment allows the government to take private property for “public use,” so long as “just compensation” is paid. In the infamous 2005 Kelo decision, the Supreme Court held that “public use” could include, well, private use, so long as the new property owner paid more in taxes than the previous one. In other words, it allowed developers and the government to gang up on homeowners. The developer gets more land, the government gets more tax money. The only losers are the original owner and his property rights. A decade and...

In a free market, there’s a pretty simple process for dealing with the situation that arises when one person covets another’s belongings: The coveter makes an offer to purchase them. If the offer is rebuffed, the coveter can make a new proposal, but he cannot simply take what he wants. It’s an effective way of recognizing the impracticality of the Tenth Commandment while enforcing the Eighth. Donald Trump’s covetous nature is not in dispute, but what many may forget is that he’s no great respecter of the admonition not to steal, either: The man has a track record of using...

Eminent domain sacrifices the rights of some individuals in favor of the alleged "public interest" of others. Amid cheers of a majority of voters, the sanction of its mayor and city council, and the financial backing of leading local businessmen, the city of San Diego is perpetrating a terrible injustice. The victims are a small group of innocent individuals facing the likelihood of being stripped of their homes and businesses.This violation is being enacted for the alleged "public use" of developing a downtown ballpark. Recently, the San Diego City Council voted to move ahead with the project and officials are...

Why does a flyspeck of a town in North Florida want voting rights to a potentially massive block of Publix Super Market's stock? Maybe it's tied to a recent campaign to oust the chain's directors at the upcoming annual meeting and take the company public. Or maybe the people of Campbellton, just south of the Alabama line in Jackson County, just want to lobby for a Publix in their town, population 351. It's tough to tell because none of the town officials are talking about their effort to seize voting rights in Publix stock by eminent domain, a move one...

National City, Calif.—A San Diego-area boxing gym that serves at-risk kids is showing what it takes to fight for what is right and to win.  A trial is scheduled to begin on Monday, March 14, 2011, to decide whether National City, Calif., may declare nearly 700 properties—including the gym—“blighted,” thus freeing the city to bulldoze these properties and make way for luxury condos among other private developments.  The trial will be held before the Honorable Steven R. Denton, Superior Court of California, Hall of Justice, 330 W. Broadway in San Diego, Calif. The Community Youth Athletic Center (CYAC) has had...

The Virginia General Assembly last week gave its first approval to a constitutional amendment restoring the sanctity of private property in the commonwealth. The measure was made necessary by the reckless 2005 Supreme Court decision Kelo v. New London, which gave towns and cities free rein to grab land for the use and benefit of well-connected developers. At issue is the power of eminent domain, under which landowners are forced to sell property to the government for public use. Over the years, the Supreme Court has expanded the scope of government takings by redefining “public use.” Originally, the term was...

Oklahoma resident Sue Kelso and her siblings have filed a motion in district court to block TransCanada’s plan to exercise eminent domain in order to build across their property. Ms. Kelso, 69, lives on a farm where she grew up near the Texas border in southern Oklahoma. “My objection is that a foreign company has no right to condemn our property, come in and take what they want, where it does not benefit us or our neighbours,” Ms. Kelso said in an interview Monday. “It only benefits them and their investors. It is for their gain – it is not...

I just received a phone call from a government official telling me they are taking my property for a public works project and I have until 2012 to hand it over. Naturally they must buy it, but I don't want to sell. Does anyone have experience fighting eminent domain? Is it possible to fight it?

...The appeal brought on by business owner, Nick Sprayregen, would have been a much needed challenge to the dreadful 2005 Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London which ruled the government may use the power of eminent domain to expropriate property for private to private transfer under the ambiguous title of “economic development." As a result of the 2005 decision, the government’s power of eminent domain has become almost limitless, providing victimized citizens with few means to protect their property. Several states have independently passed legislation to limit their power to eminent domain, and the Supreme Courts...

Early this morning armed Chilean troops opened fire with rubber bullets on Rapanui civilians. The police started shooting and tear gassing as the Rapanui people gathered in solidarity... As the Chilean troops charged towards the fleeing Rapanui, ClaudioTuki was hit in the forehead and Enrique Tepano was shot in the face. Santi Hitorangi was shot in his right leg from behind, and as he attempted to continue to film the situation he was shot twice in the back... The Rapanui people are determined not to be removed from the land that they feel is rightfully theirs and try to defend...

“My name is Susette Kelo, and the government stole my home.” Those chilling words came from famed Connecticut homeowner Susette Kelo at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Issues and Ideas Forum in East Lansing. Kelo’s battle to keep her property from being seized by her city government and turned over to private developers led to a controversial 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision...

Americans can do whatever they decide to do. Witness the politiscape littered with the careers of Democrats deposed by determined Americans who have had enough big-government socialism forced upon them. The next challenge for the tea party – and other organizations – is local and state governments that are systematically implementing freedom-robbing policies in the name of comprehensive planning, smart growth, sustainable development and environmental protection. If the word "freedom" is to have any meaning at all, it must mean that people are free to live wherever they choose, and free to use their property as they choose.

County roads could benefit from tax incremental financing on wind generators in northeastern Pottawattamie County, but local school districts would be the loser, according to at least one Walnut school board member. Shannon Griffith, school board president for Walnut Community Schools, said he had concerns about the plan and personally feels that it should not go forward. “This is taking money from two school districts to perform road maintenance in the county,” he said. “It is not the proper use of TIF law as far as I’m concerned, and I have made contact with our school attorney to take a...

Steven Greenhut may be the most annoying man in America. No, it’s not because he’s a mean guy or that he has created some silly reality show like Jersey Shores. It’s because Steve, a former Orange County Register columnist, writes books that you need to read, but are totally infuriating and raise your blood pressure a good fifty points. Even though I met Steve while he was covering a variety of political events in his pure journalism days, he didn’t inform me when his first book, Abuse of Power, was published in 2004. I actually learned about it when it...

this video was recently posted here on FR to be cheered as a victory for the little guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSIFzKNj10E i felt the subject deserves its own thread for discussion on implications regarding progressive taxation. the gist of the case was the government taking private property from one individual and giving it to another. the courts found this to be unconstitutional and ruled in the favor of Randy the mechanic. the money you earn is also private property. redistribution of wealth is the mechanism of confiscating that property to be given to others by the government. how is redistribution of wealth...

Wanna cheer for a regular guy who became a national champion for freedom? Watch brake shop owner Randy Bailey fight for his (and all of our) property rights.

When the city of Montgomery, Ala., razed the home of Karen Jones' family last April, there were still photos and family furniture inside. The city says it gave Jones notice the bulldozers were coming, but she says the notices were sent to her deceased grandmother (the home's former owner) and a deceased uncle. The reason given for the demolition was that the front porch wasn't up to code. The city declared her properly "blighted," and destroyed the building, rather than helping Jones and her family fix the porch, or fixing it and sending her a bill. And then Montgomery sent...

Go ahead and laugh at him, the way Gotham City laughs at the playboy antics of Bruce Wayne, and yes, his hair is more ridiculous and hard to believe than Charlie Crist’s marriage to novelty-products heiress Carole Rome, but Donald Trump is every so (not-often-enough) often Batman under all that bluster. He’s offering to buy out some of the Muslim investors in the property they want to build the Ground Zero Victory Mosque on. He’s offering 25% above the actual value of the land. The Muslims will refuse, because the front company Islam setup for this conquest monument, Cordoba House,...

A proposal to vastly expand the acquisition boundary of the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge has provoked passionate objections from landowners who feel they haven't been adequately notified about the plan and fear the expansion proposal could force them into giving up their land. Julia Sosebee said she didn't find out about the proposal until this week and has no interest in selling land that has been in her family since before the Civil War. "We don't have a price anyone can pay me," she said. "You can't put a price on that." CRNWR Refuge manager Stephen Miller said the...

55 years ago, Rosa Parks [1] helped launch the modern civil rights movement. Today, the government is bulldozing her old neighborhood. Here’s the real kicker: The homeowners are forced to pay the cost of demolition. Nobel prize-winning libertarian economist F.A. Hayek [2] famously wrote that “the great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the law.” There is no better example of this fundamental struggle than Rosa Parks, known today as The Mother of the Freedom Movement. She refused to be treated as a second-class citizen. But her hometown of Montgomery, Ala., segregated blacks on public transits....

A group of Montgomery, Alabama residents, once too nervous to buck their elected officials, are organizing in protest what they say is the city's "reprehensible" practice of demolishing homes to sidestep state eminent domain laws. "It's ridiculous the city is doing this," native Montgomery resident and de-facto community leader Karen Jones said. "The city is intimidating people," she said. "They don't try to give people due process of setting up fines or even putting up a fluorescent poster in the front yard saying, 'We're going to demolish your house.'" Residents and activists have accused city leaders of using a local...

Imagine you come home from work one day to a notice on your front door that you have 45 days to demolish your house, or the city will do it for you. Oh, and you’re paying for it. This is happening right now in Montgomery, Ala., and here is how it works: The city decides it doesn’t like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a “public nuisance.” It mails you a notice that you have 45 days to demolish your property, at your expense, or the city will do it for you (and, of course,...

Oak Creek — A local businessman has stepped up to pay the legal fees of Earl Giefer, the 94-year-old farmer who was in the center of an eminent domain controversy earlier this summer. After following Giefer's case in the newspaper, Scott Mayer reached out to the family - which is acquainted with his own family - to pick up $5,000 in legal fees. Empathic understanding Mayer said he, like Giefer, has had difficulty dealing with municipal government and was taught by his father to give back and help people. "I've been jagged around in the past on real estate stuff...

In 1965, Rosa Parks boarded a bus and forever changed the course of history. Her very public struggle for equality began at a bus stop outside Columbia Court apartments in Montgomery, Alabama. "It is a very sad situation, it is quite ironic, that this is the place, this is the city where the civil rights movement began in 1955, a very assertive civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King. Yet you have the civil rights of minorities being violated here in a new kind of way, on, I think, a massive scale," said David Beito, chair of the Alabama...

RALEIGH — At a press conference Tuesday, environmental activist and celebrity Erin Brockovich offered a rambling defense of the state’s efforts to take control of four central North Carolina hydroelectric dams between Salisbury and Badin owned and operated by Alcoa Power Generating Inc. “My job here today is not to sit here and bash Alcoa,” Brockovich said at a briefing that took place before an invitation-only event for state lawmakers at the exclusive Capitol City Club. “Agencies, industries, and attorneys need to get together collectively and do what’s right by people,” she added. “It’s time to … give back, and...

...It’s surprising to see how much of the press has just whiffed on a big story on Pfizer’s decision to close its New London, Connecticut, R&D headquarters. ... Remember New London? You probably ought to, and journalists certainly should. It was the defendant in the infamous Kelo v. New London case where the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the government could take private property and give it to another private interest.

Chinese officials are considering rules that would make it more difficult for local government to seize property from individuals and turn it over to developers without at least compensating the property owners, according to a report in the May 27, 2010, edition of The New York Times. East Lansing officials may want to pay attention. Government taking of private property in China has led to considerable civil unrest including several cases of suicide of victimized property owners. Chinese officials may be more worried about rapidly escalating real estate values and a possible future real estate bubble than individual property rights,...

EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso County turns over land to the federal government to build the Tornillo-Guadalupe Port of Entry, despite a last stand by a farming family whose land was taken from them through eminent domain. The new port of entry will be on 137 acres that used to be owned by the Lettunich family, land they owned since the 1920s. But three weeks ago, through eminent domain, the county got the land, and in return, the county was ordered to pay the family $1.4 million. On Monday, the 137 acres was turned over from the county to...

...The Institute for Justice and National Association of Home Builders want to bring the case before the Supreme Court. If it agrees to hear the case, we can only hope that a ruling is given in favor of private establishments across the country...

"It's a perverse use of eminent domain," says Brian Rainville. “There is no public good here." He stood on a green field, filled with alfalfa and grass, on the gentle rolling hills of his family's Franklin, Vermont farm… just steps from the Canadian border. He says the barn dates back to 1800, and the land is on the national registry of historic places. But Brian’s family, who have been dairy farmers here since 1946, may not have the land much longer. The United States Government says it needs 4.9 acres of the family’s property to help protect national security. The...