Tuesday - March 01, 2005

Eminent Domain, Part II

ou folks might as well get used to it. This topic is going to be covered extensively here. What is happening in New London, CT is an abomination. Vilmar summed it up nicely yesterday with excerpts from an excellent article by Jeff Jacoby. The Supreme Court heard arguments last week and is deliberating now before delivering an opinion. Make no mistake, this will be a critical decision and will affect all of us. Here it is in a nutshell ....

■ The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution contain clauses prohibiting the federal or state governments from seizing your property without due process of law, meaning the government has to have a valid, legal reason for taking your property and has to reimburse you fairly for the theft.

■ In a 1954 decision (Berman v. Parker) the Supreme Court handed down a decision that opened up a can of worms. The decision basically said that urban blight is sufficient reason for government to condemn a piece of property and force the owner to sell the property to the government for cleanup to be put to better use.

■ However, in the fifty years since this decision, the state and local governments around the country have gradually broadened the definition of “eminent domain” as it is called to include all manner of reasons to condemn a person’s property and take it from them, at substantially lower than market value in some cases. In other words, the crooks at City Hall have gotten greedier and greedier.

■ In New London, CT, the city decided to take some property because (hold on to your hat) the property could be used for an office development that would generate more revenue for the city. In point of fact, the “office development” is only in the “wishful thinking” stage but the city wants the property now .... so they condemned it.

■ I’ve seen pictures of the property owner’s house in a recent issue of Time Magazine. Susette Kelo owns a very pretty, well-kept home. For the city to condemn this property is an affront to all sensible people in this country. It is theft, pure and simple. By government. Of a citizen’s house and home. For profit. Outrage.

I urge you to go read the Merit Briefs on this case at the American Bar Association’s web site. I cannot tell you how critical this ruling will be. In fact, I’ll just let you read the closing argument of the attorney for the homeowners in his Petitioner’s Reply Brief ....

A ruling in favor of the homeowners will not disturb the general course of development throughout the country. On the other hand, a ruling in favor of the Respondents will change the law dramatically for home and business owners. Every home and every business, everywhere in the country, will be subject to condemnation if a local government prefers some other private party’s use of the property. Or, as counsel for the NLDC (New London Development Corporation) put it recently, “We need to get housing at the upper end, for people like the Pfizer employees. . . . They are the professionals, they are the ones with the expertise and the leadership qualities to remake the city – the young urban professionals who will invest in New London, put their kids in school, and think of this as a place to stay for 20 or 30 years.” Iver Peterson, There Goes the Old Neighborhood, to Revitalization, The New York Times, Jan. 30, 2005, at A25. The condemnations in this case are an act of raw preference for one type of people, one type of housing, and higher tax dollars over the current residents. Cities may seek wealthy residents and higher taxes, but they cannot do so at the expense of constitutional rights. The ruling of the Connecticut Supreme Court paves the way for increasing use of eminent domain for private development. This Court should resist Respondents’ urging to read public use out of the Constitution and thereby fundamentally alter the rights of all property owners in the United States.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/01/2005 at 01:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
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4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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