Free Republic

Governor Vetoes Eminent Domain Legislation Override Sought as Lawmakers Enter Final Day of Session Governor Minner has vetoed legislation which would have placed tight restrictions on when a government could resort to the use of eminent domain to confiscate property. Legislation passed in the General Assembly last week would have kept a government from using eminent domain to promote economic development. Businesses near the Wilmington riverfront have been concerned that the city wants to take their property to keep development moving forward. Some of those property owners will be on hand to urge lawmakers to override the Governor's veto. Lawmakers...

In her two great works--The Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Economy of Cities—Jane Jacobs explained that effective economic development and urban renewal arise from the bottom up as the product of thousands of enterprises and people working on their own without a master plan, rather than from the top down, as planned by politicians or bureaucrats. The vibrancy and diversity of city markets and neighborhoods lie in “the creation of incredible numbers of different people and different private organizations, with vastly differing ideas and purposes, planning and contriving outside the formal framework of public action,” she...

Proponents of Prop. 98 Respond to Election Outcome Vow to Work on Legislative Solution to End Eminent Domain Abuse Sacramento, CA - Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, issued the following statement on the outcome of the Election. "Since the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision in 2005 more than 40 states have passed reforms that would prohibit government from profiting by seizing private property and giving it to politically connected developers. Prop. 98 was the only measure on the ballot that addressed the Kelo decision by providing comprehensive protections to all private property and...

Both would load up the state constitution to attack a problem that just doesn't exist - It's back. Yet another initiative – Proposition 98 – is on the ballot masquerading as "eminent domain" reform and trying to scare people with the prospect that their homes might be "taken" by the government.Yet Proposition 98 is really about a sweeping agenda to lard up the California Constitution to end forever the ability of local governments to enact rent control or affordable housing ordinances, to set rules that set liquor store hours or to require developers to pay fees to build schools.In Sacramento,...

In the battle over two state propositions on Tuesday's ballot that would restrict government seizure of private property, nearly a majority of California voters support the more limited Proposition 99 while giving thumbs down to Proposition 98, which would abolish rent control, according to a Field Poll released today. A survey of 660 likely voters conducted May 17-26 found 48 percent favoring Prop. 99, with 30 percent opposed and 22 percent undecided, according to the poll results. Those supporting Prop. 98 stood at 33 percent, with 43 percent opposed and 24 percent undecided. Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said he'd...

I never imagined that in America, I could be sued for speaking about politics. My ordeal began in early 2006 when my husband, Wes, and I heard about a petition being circulated seeking to annex our unincorporated neighborhood ... We researched the issue and decided that the extra layer of government wouldn't provide better services, while our sales tax would skyrocket. We'd be paying more for less. We own a print shop, so Wes used some scraps and made a couple of yard signs. One said "No Annexation" and the other said "Annexation Is A Permanent Tax Increase." We planted...

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Connecticut city's right to seize through eminent domain the waterfront homes of long-time residents for private development. The court held that, like the construction of schools and roads, economic development itself constitutes a "public use" under the Fifth Amendment. Both liberals and conservatives were outraged. As dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory." Some 40 states responded by passing...

The U.S. Supreme Court created a huge political backlash when it ruled that local governments could use eminent domain to seize private property and transfer it to other private owners for "economic development." Since the Kelo ruling in 2005, 42 states have enacted limitations on eminent domain — not always effective ones. But like lawmakers in many other states, some California officials are trying to block real eminent domain reform. On June 3, Californians will vote on Proposition 99, a ballot initiative sponsored by groups representing cities, counties, redevelopment agencies and other pro-condemnation interests. It purports to protect property rights...

The Dirty Dozen By Robert A. Levy and William Mellor (Sentinel, 302 pages, $25.95) Town fathers of Norway, take note. You have a new adversary in Ellen Anderson. Ms. Anderson is the Minnesota state senator who is pushing legislation to freeze foreclosures on homes with subprime mortgages in the name of "protecting the American dream." The economic chill from such a move – and from other attempts to protect "the American dream" from mortgage meltdown – would likely be felt around the world by pension plans, banks and municipalities that have invested in mortgage-backed securities. As it happens, a number...

The View - Yes on Prop. 98/No on Prop. 99 - The Battle to Restore Private Property Rights Since California has failed to join more than 40 states in reforming its eminent domain statutes, a diverse group of business, farm and taxpayer organizations have taken a leading role in restoring private property protections for California business property by qualifying Proposition 98, the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, for the June 2008 ballot. It is well documented that business owners are the most common victims of eminent domain abuse because of local governments' appetite for sales tax revenue to...

Big Government types and Prop 99 All you really need to know about the two eminent domain propositions on the June 3 ballot, 98 and 99, is that Proposition 99 is being touted by politicians and other government types as the real solution to government intrusion on private property ownership. Among them are the usual suspects, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, both of whom believe in Big Government, and both of whom describe Proposition 98 as a hindrance to solving such state problems as water quality and supply. Feinstein, in a release at the end...

Editorial: Prop. 98 protects private property rights June election is coming: Vote yes on Prop. 98, for real eminent-domain reform, and no on Prop. 99, which is designed to stop such reform. The campaigns for Propositions 98 and 99 on the June 3 ballot are getting heated, and it would be no surprise if most California voters are confused by the two eminent domain-related measures. As often occurs in political campaigns, one side or the other misrepresents the purpose of its initiative. For instance, Prop. 99's supporters claim that the measure will stop eminent domain abuses that have become well...

One of the most important Constitutional questions in the history of our Republic might be decided over a few acres of rat infested railroad yards in Brooklyn and a handful of doughty home owners who like living nearby. The question is whether the Constitution permits a developer to seize the property of the few residents continuing to live in the footprint of the proposed Atlantic Yards development near downtown Brooklyn. The question is now pending before the Supreme Court of the United States because, as our Joseph Goldstein reported yesterday at Page 1, more than a dozen plaintiffs, including three...

In June 2005, the Supreme Court rendered its infamous Kelo v. New London decision. The Court’s 5-4 majority, despite the clear language of the Fifth Amendment, decided that “public use” (roads, bridges, etc.) really means “public purpose” (anything the government wants). In the absence of state or local laws to the contrary, the ruling in effect green-lighted whimsical use of the government’s power of eminent domain nationwide. What has happened in New London, Connecticut since the Kelo ruling is an object lesson in why the Supremes were wrong.

A dispute over the proper valuation of 10 acres of property in Eisenhower Valley has two of the city’s oldest families and the Sanitation Authority pitted against each other, with the sellers asking for $40 million and the city holding out for $10 million less. The Hoof-Fagelson Tract, formerly a go-kart track that now serves as a maintenance parking lot for Thrifty Rent-A-Car, is landlocked on one side by Carlyle development, and on the other side by I-495. While the tract sits next to Alexandria’s Waste Treatment facility, it also adjoins a proposed $150 million office and retail development at...

If David Paterson as governor displays the opposition to eminent domain that he showed as a state senator, several high-profile development projects in New York City could be derailed or delayed, including a Columbia University expansion, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, and the transformation of Willets Point in Queens. As a state Senate leader, Mr. Paterson in 2005 held a rally with Council Member Letitia James and state Senator William Perkins on the steps of City Hall during which he called for a statewide moratorium on the use of eminent domain. Mr. Paterson said a decision handed down by...

REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence. more stories like this Obama faces heat over aide's NAFTA remarks to Canadians Texas, Ohio could decide Dem nomination Canada says didn't misrepresent Obama over NAFTA McCain tags Dems on trade treaty NAFTA seen differently in Ohio, Texas And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called...

Propositions that are on the June 3, 2008 Statewide Direct Primary Election Ballot Initiative Constitutional AmendmentProposition 98 1248. Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property. Constitutional Amendment. Proponents: Doug Mosebar, Jon Coupal and Jim Nielsen Bars state and local governments from condemning or damaging private property for private uses. Prohibits rent control and similar measures. Prohibits deference to government in property rights cases. Defines “just compensation.” Requires an award of attorneys fees and costs if a property owner obtains a judgment for more than the amount offered by the government. Requires government to offer to original owner of condemned property...

One major concern I discussed a few weeks ago regarding the Trans Texas Corridor is where the land will come from. Another concern is where the money will come from. Official government websites for the TTC assure that public-private partnerships will shield the taxpayer from bearing too much of the cost burden, but a careful reading shows the door is definitely open to public funding sources, while at the same time there is no doubt of the intention to charge tolls on the road. Taxpayers already pay for their transportation system through hefty gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees, and other...

EL CALABOZ, Tex. -- In the 240 years since the Spanish Crown granted Eloisa Tamez's colonial ancestors title to this flat, grassy expanse along the Rio Grande's northern bank, her family has steadily lost its holdings...Now Tamez faces what could prove the final blow: The Department of Homeland Security has proposed building a section of the U.S-Mexico border fence mandated by Congress directly through the last three acres of the family's original 12,000-acre tract. But the 72-year-old nursing professor has a message for government officials who expect her to leave. "I'm not going down without a fight," Tamez said..., Across...

(AP) When 70-year-old Betty Perry was accused of neglecting her lawn, she became defiant. Perry was arrested, handcuffed and briefly jailed in July for declining a ticket for failing to water her lawn. She agreed on Friday to resolve her case by pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge and paying a $100 fine. She also faces six months of probation. Perry was scheduled to go to trial Monday on a more serious charge of resisting arrest for refusing to give her name, accept a citation or allow herself to be handcuffed on her front steps. "She ends up with...

BELLVILLE — In what is becoming a regular occurrence in Southeast Texas, more than 1,000 Austin County residents and interested outsiders jammed a county fairgrounds exhibit hall Monday night to let a panel of state transportation officials know that the Trans-Texas Corridor was not welcome here. State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, opened the public remarks to thunderous applause when she told the panel, "You all thought I was crazy in Austin when I said my people don't want it and I don't want it." The panel, which included Texas Department of Transportation Executive Director Amadeo Saenz and Deputy Executive Director...

Leaders in a small Texas border city said Wednesday that they felt blindsided after learning that a judge had ordered public land turned over temporarily to the federal government as it works on a fence along the border with Mexico. U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum ordered Eagle Pass to surrender 233 acres of city-owned land. The Justice Department had sued for access to the land Monday. Ludlum's ruling came the same day, before the city could muster a challenge. The Homeland Security Department is trying to build 370 miles of border fence by the end of the year. A...

CARTHAGE — James Mason doesn't want a new highway cutting him off from his property. James Boggs wants to keep American jobs here. They were just a sample of about 140 residents who asked, commented and listened during a public forum with state transportation leaders Wednesday night in Carthage. It was the second of several forums scheduled along the Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed superhighway that likely will parallel U.S. 59 from Texarkana to the Mexican border. "We haven't done a very good job of (communicating) in the past," said Steve Simmons, deputy executive director of Texas Department of Transportation....

After months of protesting Columbia’s smoking ordinance and spearheading a failed campaign to have it repealed, Joel Thiel, co-owner of Otto’s Corner Bar & Grill, said he decided this week to close doors for good. Julia Robinson photos Above, Brett Wisman, left, and Kristal Allen smoke cigarettes after dinner last night at Otto’s Corner Bar & Grill in downtown Columbia. Below, Otto’s co-owner Joel Thiel works yesterday in the restaurant. Otto’s will close next week, a move Thiel blamed on the city’s smoking ban. He said sales have been down 30 percent since the ban took effect in January. "Our...

Points to sales tax as reliable, long-term solution to fully fund public education

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration warned landowners along the southern border Friday that it would seize their property if they refused to cooperate with federal efforts to build a fence meant to slow illegal immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he would give landowners 30 days to indicate whether they would allow federal officials on their land to survey its suitability for fencing. If they decline, he said, he would turn to the courts to gain temporary access. If the agency determines the land is appropriate for fencing and landowners refuse to cooperate, the department will turn to the...

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is giving Texas landowners opposed to a border fence one last chance to allow access to their land before he takes court action against them, a Texas senator said Thursday. Sen. John Cornyn said letters from the Department of Homeland Security are expected to go out Friday. But for those who refuse access, the department would likely seek a court order to enter the property, he said. "He assured me that negotiations would continue and his hope is the vast majority of these cases could be resolved without litigation, maybe in handful of...

As an exemplar of a government-run enterprise stuck in the mud, it's hard to come with a better example than what is happening in the area that was the subject of the infamous Kelo v. New London ruling in 2005. Nearly 2-1/2 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that the city could evict Susette Kelo and other holdouts and take their homes, and 17 months after the final settlement between the city and the final two holdouts, very little has been done in the affected area. The latest setback to substantive progress in the area is significant, and is...

Judgment amounts to more than 3 times the annual budget -- Half Moon Bay -- Half Moon Bay city officials said Thursday they are stunned by a federal judge's order that the city pay a landowner $36.8 million for coastal property the court says the city damaged. The award amounts to more than three times the city's annual operating budget - or roughly $3,000 per resident. "It's devastating," Vice Mayor Bonnie McClung said Thursday night as the City Council prepared to begin a special closed-door meeting on how to deal with the verdict. "It's personally devastating to me, and it's...

t's one thing for a government to use its police powers to take a property to make way for a truly public project, such as a freeway, but quite another for it to bulldoze neighborhoods because a developer is coveting the property. The League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association, whose members benefit by the current lax standards for eminent domain, funded a campaign in November 2006 to stop Proposition 90, a statewide initiative that would have banned eminent domain for economic development and forced cities to pay compensation for "regulatory takings." Fortunately, supporters of a more traditional,...

Don and Susie Kirlin of Boulder, Colordao. How many times have we heard about government abuses of the right to own property going on in neighborhoods across America, in the form of the invoking of the right of ‘eminent domain’, and the corruption of other legal concepts? Kelo vs. New London is probably the most publicized of such unconstitutional atrocities, but similar atrocities occur daily across this country. How many of us have attempted to help the victims of such abuses of power? I myself have done so no more than once or twice. I ask any FReeper who...

<p>BOULDER -- A warning for property owners. A little-known law could allow a trespasser to take your property without paying a penny for it.</p>

WASHINGTON, DC - A conservation bill currently in the House of Representatives will reportedly contain provisions to protect sensitive cornfield ecosystems from farmers. The amendment was inspired by a recent University of California at Santa Barbara study of the unique wildlife supported by the fields, and the devastating effects on them due to harvesting. The amendment is expected to receive wide support and pass easily to the Senate...

What could make the Free Software Foundation (FSF), proprietary software companies, and at least one venture capitalist into allies? The End Software Patents (ESP) coalition, a new organization poised to swing into action next month under the leadership of Ben Klemens. The campaign currently has seed funding of a quarter million dollars from sources those associated with the group won't disclose, and hopes to augment that with donations from individuals and companies for a struggle that, to judge by the usual amount of time it takes to push major changes through the US Supreme Court, could take five years or...

As Congress haggles over the farm bill, it is time again to consider updating the legislation. The Agriculture Adjustment Act, passed “to relieve the … national economic emergency” of the Great Depression has been the basis for most major agricultural legislation since the 1930s. The basic emphasis of each farm bill has been to raise the prices of crops and livestock in order to help farmers. Recently, President Bush has proposed changes in farm policy that are projected to reduce spending by $10 billion over the next five years. This is a step in the right direction, but it still...

"[T]he right of acquiring and possessing property and having it protected, is one of the natural inherent and unalienable rights of man."[1] A few years ago, one noted political reformer applauded the "demise of property as a formal constitutional limit." A new view of the right to property had, in this author's opinion, begun to replace the old constitutional formalism of the inviolable and sacred right to property. Indeed, this new conception of property "requires incursions on traditional property rights. What once defined the limits to governmental power becomes the prime subject of affirmative governmental action."[2] The object or purpose...

IN A WEEK that saw real-estate tax increases go out to hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians, we learned that John Street failed to pay real-estate bills sent out by the government he heads. In a Philly first, he seemed to be dissing himself. In Monday's Daily News, Chris Brennan revealed that Street didn't pay real-estate taxes going back to 2004 on two of four properties he owns in North Philadelphia.

A LETTER FROM SENATOR TOM MCCLINTOCK TO CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY DELEGATES Dear California Republican, Since the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial Kelo v. New London case more than two years ago, over 40 states have passed some form of eminent domain reform. Since California has not passed meaningful reforms, it comes as no surprise that the Institute for Justice, the non-profit organization that litigated the Kelo case, reports that the seizing of private property from unwilling sellers is on the rise in California. According to the Center for Responsible Government, the League of California Cities and other redevelopment interests have spent...

To: Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Christopher Dodd, Senator Charles Schumer and members of Congress Please do not support the efforts to bail out mortgage holders and mortgage lenders with my tax dollars. As a responsible citizen, I do not believe it is right for you to ask me to pay for other peoples’ financial excesses, especially since a bailout encourages lenders to continue making predatory loans, with the assumption that taxpayers are on the hook. Further, we believe that the liability of the mortgage mess should NOT be shifted to GSE’s Freddie and Fannie. I appreciate the goal of helping...

This month, a jury may decide if the 54-year-old founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society was acting within his rights when he impeded the progress of a bird-stalking predator by means of a bullet. Mr. Stevenson is due to stand trial for felony cat murder. "There are people with the wrong perception of this," he said in his Chevy compact on a stormy morning, driving along a wide beach at Galveston Island's western tip, where curlews, egrets, stilts and herons strut in the tide pools. He stopped at the pilings beneath the San Luis Pass bridge: the scene of the...

(2/27/07 - SAN MATEO, CA) - A woman who has covered her roof and property with painted slogans she calls messages from God has been ordered to remove them or face possible fines or jail time. The San Mateo City Council unanimously ruled last week that Estrella Benavides' writings violate city codes regulating the size of signs. The writings allege vast government conspiracies, among other warnings. Benavides, 47, who also broadcasts the messages from a loudspeaker on her car's roof, has said the messages come to her from God through a statue at her church and from the Bible. She...

Reformers are trying to outlaw eminent domain abuse. But will the laws they're passing be effective?In Kelo v. City of New London (2005), the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the government to condemn property and transfer it to other private owners in the name of "economic development." Upholding the forced transfer of land in New London, Connecticut, to private developers, the Court ruled that virtually any potential public benefit satisfies the Fifth Amendment's requirement that the authorities can take property only for a "public use." Traditionally, a public use had meant a government-owned facility or a public utility with legally mandated...

It has been two years since the now-infamous Kelo decision, in which five Supreme Court justices ruled that the Constitution permits the use of eminent domain to seize well-maintained private property for economic development — that is, a real estate developer’s promise that his or her project will produce more tax revenue than someone’s existing home or small business. Although such projects relying on the use of government force to remove property owners have been all too common in recent history, the June 23, 2005, decision marked the first time the Supreme Court allowed condemnation for a purely private purpose...

John Revelli vividly remembers the day the U.S. Supreme Court issued its infamous Kelo decision that allowed local governments to condemn private property under eminent domain, not only for public uses such as roads and schools, but also to accommodate private developers. "The Kelo decision," the former owner of Revelli Tires in Oakland noted over the phone, "came out on June 23 of '05, and the deadline that the city put up against us to move out was July 1." The five-to-four ruling spelled curtains for Revelli Tires.

Escalating tensions in a Wildomar property dispute have spurred a Riverside County official to seek changes to an obscure state law that allows squatters to take land from unsuspecting owners. "If someone is squatting on a piece of your land or someone is in your house, you usually can call the sheriff and the government comes to help you out," Treasurer-Tax Collector Paul McDonnell said. That's not always the case with adverse possession, a law rooted in Anglo-Saxon history that McDonnell said has created "a cottage industry of people who are attempting to capitalize on the weakness of others."

Gov. Rick Perry’s veto this week of an eminent domain bill designed to protect landowners left a lot of Texans scratching their heads, and you can lump us in with those feeling dumbfounded. Perry — who was among those making political hay when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that cities can seize homes under eminent domain for use by private developers and made the issue an emergency item in a special session that same year — had a chance to back his tough talk and posturing on property rights with action. But when push came to powerful shove...

LUBBOCK, Texas — One Central Texas farmer said Monday he was "dumbfounded" by Gov. Rick Perry's veto of an eminent domain bill designed to protect landowners when the state wants to take their property. Robert Fleming is not alone in an area worried about the massive Trans Texas Corridor proposal. The planned route cuts through Fleming's Bell County farms. He's bewildered by Perry's veto. "We were so close to getting something done," Fleming said. "We've worked hard trying to get private property rights." Perry vetoed the bill, and 48 others, Friday. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kelo...

AUSTIN – A property rights bill that went awry and a mandate for the Trans-Texas Corridor to follow the state's existing highway system were among the 49 bills that fell victim to Gov. Rick Perry's veto pen on Friday. Mr. Perry targeted at least two bills that he believed would open the courthouse doors to more litigation, including a bill that would have provided a greater balance in eminent domain proceedings. The bill spelled out what public land uses were acceptable in order to take private land and provided more recourse for land owners. But a provision tacked onto the...

The Kelo Antidote Many conservatives took affront to the Supreme Court ruling in the Kelo case, in which the court upheld the right of a city to use eminent domain to force property from one private owner to another. The decision was seen as yet another judicial overreach, an expansion of the notion of "public use" that left private-property owners vulnerable to the whims of state and local politicians looking for favors from developers and monied interests. It started a legislative reaction to curb the use of eminent domain around the nation. Today the New York Times reports that some...