Free Republic

On Thursday, the Biden administration restored rules to protect imperiled plants and animals that had been rolled back under former President Trump. Among the changes announced, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft time-intensive plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines and alligator snapping turtles in the southeastern U.S. and spotted owls. The blanket protection regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes...

If you own a business, the leftists in Congress are coming for you. The only thing standing in their way is the US Constitution. Whether you own a mom-and-pop diner, an auto-repair shop or shares in a multinational corporation, your property is at risk. The Constitution’s “takings clause” was designed to protect us from government grabbing our property without paying fairly for it. But last year, Democrats rammed through the Inflation Reduction Act, boasting it would enable Medicare to “negotiate” lower prices for medications for seniors. “Negotiate” is a lie. Under the new law, the feds can strong-arm companies to...

Tyler v. Hennepin County [Minnesota] As an elderly woman living alone, Geraldine Tyler was doing just fine in the one-bedroom condo she owned in Minneapolis. That is, until 2010, when a rise in neighborhood crime and frightening incidents near her home alarmed Geraldine and her family and prompted her hasty move to a safer area, where she rented an apartment in a senior community. Finally Geraldine felt safe and comfortable again, surrounded by other seniors. But the property taxes on her condo started piling up. Soon Geraldine accrued a $2,300 tax debt; and the government started tacking on thousands of...

In the infamous case of Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court allowed the city of New London, Connecticut to take Susette Kelo’s little pink house (also the name of a very good movie about the case) via eminent domain for the “public use” of furthering economic development in the town’s Fort Trumbull neighborhood. The fight in that case was over the meaning of the words “public use” in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, and whether the words provide essentially any limit on what a municipality or legislature says is “public use.” In Kelo, one of the major...

House Bill 2238 -- https://legiscan.com/OR/text/HB2238/2021 Relating to private property during emergency; amending ORS 35.350 and 401.188.

Throughout much of June 2020, far-left activists exercised control over a part of Seattle that came to be known as the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest Zone" (CHOP). City officials allowed the activists to control the 16-block area in the wake of clashes with police arising from protests triggered by the brutal killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota. During the three week period of CHOP "autonomy" (which was finally ended when the mayor ordered police to clear the area on July 1), there was extensive violence and property damage in the area. Property owners have sued the city,...

Top tech leaders and other billionaires would be forced to hand over billions of dollars in wealth they've gained during the coronavirus pandemic under a new bill introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. The "Make Billionaires Pay Act" would impose a one-time 60% tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021. The funds would be used to pay for out-of-pocket health-care expenses for all Americans for a year. As of Aug. 5, the bill would tax $731 billion in wealth accumulated by 467 billionaires since March...

California State Sen. Scott Wiener introduced legislation to increase affordable housing by easing zoning restrictions. Under Senate Bill 899, nonprofit hospitals and faith institutions like churches, synagogues and mosques, would be able to build up to 150 affordable housing units on their excess property, regardless of local zoning prohibits that type of housing. "Churches and other religious and charitable institutions often have land to spare, and they should be able to use that land to build affordable housing and thus further their mission. SB899 ensures that affordable housing can be built and removes local zoning and approval obstacles in order...

... The practice of government taking land for recreational uses—typically bike lanes, hiking paths and fashionable “rail trails” and “greenways”—is spreading across the country, marking a sharp and troubling expansion of eminent domain. The Takings Clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment grants government the authority to seize property to be used for the public good, as long as government pays “just compensation” to the owner. Over the years, the Supreme Court has consistently expanded what is considered a “public good” to justify government seizures. In 2005, for instance, the high court upheld the taking of Susette Kelo’s waterfront home by...

A compensation plan has been developed for victims of a program established by Philadelphia that confiscated homes, cars and money without reason. The Institute for Justice sued the city and announced a year ago a settlement was being developed. Some 35,000 notices have been sent to victims, but they need to confirm their participation in the settlement, the organization explained. "Innocent Philadelphians who unjustly lost homes, money and cars to the city's forfeiture machine are able to get every penny back but they need to apply before the deadline," said Darpana Sheth, lead counsel for plaintiffs and director of the...

Our constitutional system assumes that federal courts serve to remedy an injustice created by officials in the legislative and executive branches. Unfortunately, federal courts, even the Supreme Court, sometimes are responsible for creating an injustice. Thirty years ago, the Supreme Court did that for property owners in Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City. On Friday, in Knick v. Township of Scott, the court ended that injustice by overruling Williamson County by a 5-4 vote. For more than 30 years, people with claims under the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause have been told, “Get in the back of the...

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled 5-4 to overturn a decades-old precedent on property rights, a decision that marks a victory for conservatives. The previous 1985 ruling that found that an individual whose property is taken by a local government cannot file a federal suit under the Fifth Amendment until that challenge fails in state court. But on Friday the justices ruled along ideological lines to reverse that precedent, finding that the requirement “imposes an unjustifiable burden,” conflicts with other similar rulings and “must be overruled.” “A property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings claim when the government takes...

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled 5-4 to overturn a decades-old precedent on property rights, a decision that marks a victory for conservatives. The previous 1985 ruling found that an individual whose property is taken by a local government cannot file a federal suit under the Fifth Amendment until that challenge fails in state court. But on Friday the justices ruled along ideological lines to reverse that precedent, finding that the requirement “imposes an unjustifiable burden,” conflicts with other similar rulings and “must be overruled.” “A property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings claim when the government takes his...

... In addition to being a victory for property owners, Knick v. Township of Scott is also notable for featuring some sharp words from Justice Clarence Thomas directed at the federal government. As Thomas noted in a concurring opinion, the U.S. solicitor general filed an amicus brief in the case which argued that "the failure to provide contemporaneous compensation for a taking does not violate the Fifth Amendment if the government has provided an adequate mechanism for obtaining just compensation." What's wrong with that? Here is a sample of Thomas' rather pointed rebuke to the federal government: The United States…urges...

MARYLANDERS STUNNED by rush-hour traffic on the Capital Beltway, brace yourselves: Your commute is on track to get much, much worse. Roughly 30,000 more vehicles will be using Maryland’s portion of the highway each day by 2040, on top of the current 253,000, meaning cars and trucks will creep along at an average speed of 14 mph between Bethesda and College Park — a 10-mile segment that will take 43 minutes. That’s part of the impetus for a bold plan Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has advanced that would add up to four toll lanes to the Beltway and Interstate 270....

By Bruce DePuyt — When Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) announced a major plan to widen three Maryland roadways last year, even transportation insiders were caught off-guard. “I was surprised by it, but I rejoiced at it,” said John B. Townsend II, AAA mid-Atlantic’s manager of public and government affairs. “As much as people are loath to admit it, the congestion in Maryland has limited economic development in the state. And [it has] impacted the quality of life because of the amount of hours — more than 80 hours a year [on average] — we spend being stuck in...

The final leg of Interstate 69 from Martinsville to Indianapolis will cost nearly $1.6 billion.ThatÂ’s according to the Final Environmental Impact Statement for I-69 Section 6 the state released Thursday. The analysis says construction could start in 2020 and wrap up within six years.Section 6 will run along the existing route of State Road 37. That means some of the many businesses that line the highway in Morgan, Johnson and Marion counties will have to move.The FEIS says more than 80 businesses, including a non-profit and fire station, will need to relocate. ThatÂ’s in addition to nearly 200 residences that...

OKLAHOMA COUNTY - Work is set to begin next week on a controversial, new turnpike that will carve a path through eastern Oklahoma County. The Eastern Oklahoma County Turnpike will connect I-40 to the Turner Turnpike, traveling roughly along Luther Road. Since the project was first announced almost two and a half years ago, it has drawn protests from many in the area who are set to lose their homes and land. “Even to this day, we don’t have a size or an actual line or layout for sure of what they even want,” said Joe Krecke. What Krecke does...

A Fayetteville lawyer said construction of the Outer Loop highway connecting Interstate 95 north and south of Fayetteville stands to be delayed because of recent rulings in long-running lawsuits between the N.C. Department of Transportation and numerous landowners throughout the state. The rulings, one in Cumberland County Superior Court and another by the state Court of Appeals, rejected attempts by the Department of Transportation to buy people’s land under eminent domain without first paying the owners for the years that they were restricted by law in how they could use their property. Each ruling, by coincidence, was issued Nov. 21....

If there is an indefensible position on property rights, count on an academic to take it. On March 20 the Supreme Court began to hear oral arguments in Murr v. Wisconsin, a property rights case it agreed to take up in January 2016. The Cato Institute previewed the case on St. Patrick's Day. "Joseph Murr and his siblings own two side-by-side lakeside lots, one with a recreational cabin and the other left vacant as an investment," the Cato Institute release noted. "Due to land-use restrictions, they allege that Wisconsin has 'taken' the vacant lot, which would require the state to...