Emminent Domain -Is this the wave of the future?

[DemonFighterLives]

This was just on CNN this morning. Riviera Beach FL wants to take over many acres of land for malls, etc.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051003-122623-2136r.htm
Florida's Riviera Beach is a poor, predominantly black, coastal community that intends to revitalize its economy by using eminent domain, if necessary, to displace about 6,000 local residents and build a billion-dollar waterfront yachting and housing complex.
"This is a community that's in dire need of jobs, which has a median income of less than $19,000 a year," said Riviera Beach Mayor Michael Brown.
He defends the use of eminent domain by saying the city is "using tools that have been available to governments for years to bring communities like ours out of the economic doldrums and the trauma centers."

http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/2282005_Your_Home_Is_Your_Castle.asp



Apparently, well under the radar, or at least unnoticed by the mainstream media, this ruling has slowly morphed into what local municipalities now consider a right to condemn private property in order to turn it over to other private ownership for development.

In Ogden, Utah the City Council wants to replace an older “blighted” neighborhood containing 34 homes and eight businesses with a Wal-Mart.

San Bernardino, California successfully evicted homeowners and a motel to build a new shopping center.

Riviera Beach, Florida has developed a plan to condemn 1,700 homes and apartments. While the city is probably years away from acting, these plans have substantial impact on homeowners’ ability to sell or desire to improve their properties.
According to The Institute for Justice as quoted by the Associated Press, there have been over 10,000 cases where private property was either threatened by condemnation or actually condemned by government for private use. (A second source quotes this figure for the time period 1998 to 2001.)


--
You are in b*shworld now. Please hold on to your belongings (if you can).
:argh:

Edit to remove some of the second article and confusion.

[zbdent]

1. Whew! Those damn liberals would have wanted to use E.D. to

build a park, or a school, or something for the common good, instead of something to make $$$, like the conservatives and Republicans use E.D. for!

Merry Chri$tma$!!!

[Quakerfriend]

2. Thx to *co re-vamping of the laws several months ago it is!

Very scary really when you realize that they can take anyone's home in the name of making a profit.

[MostlyLurks]

5. It wasn't * this time.

If you're referring to the recent Supreme Court decision on ED, it was not the Bush/SCOTUS conservatives who made the majority decision. It was largely the so-called "liberal" justices who wrote the majority decision. But that's not the real problem.

The problem is that they decided it correctly based on the Constitutional interpretation and, as always, the media reported the decision in the simplest, lowest common denominator method they possibly could, thereby distorting what the court's opinion actually said or meant.

The reality is that the dissenters, who included "state's rights advocates" and "strict consctructionists" Scalia and Thomas, sold their supposed bedrock convictions out in order to make a decision that flew in the face of both state's rights and constructionist dogma.

Mostly

[DemonFighterLives]

7. E.D. only seems to make sense in very few cases

Such as an interstate road or high speed train (dreaming). The cases where it is being used is for malls, yachting and other big developement.
I can hardly wait for the big boys to move on New Orleans.
Our fearless leader obtained land to build his stadium at basically fire sale prices. This increased the value of the Texas Rangers and dubby made his first millions.
Somehow this legislation has appeared after the emperor took over.
:shrug:

[MostlyLurks]

8. I agree that ED is being overused and abused.

The problem is that the Constitution does not *specifically* state what constitutes a public good or public use - it hands that right over to the states, who can choose to use ED as they see fit. Many states, as in the recent SCOTUS case, have codified "public good" to include schemes that transfer private property from one owner to another, with the only public benefit coming in the form of ponzi schemes like "increased tax base" and "improved property values" and the like.

The SCOTUS decision was not onerous - it's the state laws that suck. And progressive pols could score points if they'd get their thumbs out of their asses and present legislation that strictly codifies use of ED, what "public good" means, etc.

So I agree with you that ED as it's being used sucks.

Mostly

[DemonFighterLives]

10. It just seems like more corruption to me

Is there anyone left clean enough to clean it up?
I grew up on a family farm when Ronnie Reagan basically destroyed them. Tons of money was given out and then the farms were foreclosed on. It was a big Federal Land Grab in my mind. Corporate farms took hold and the consumers will be the ones hit the hardest.

[MostlyLurks]

11. If it can be legislated...

If use of ED and definitions of ED could be legislated into state law, then it wouldn't matter much about the corruption levels of those involved because any land grab they made would be subject to legal action and review. Now, obviously the problem would be in getting a good bill approved, rather than some toothless, watered-down version filled with vagaries and loopholes. That would be a challenge.

The good thing is that ED is an aisle-crossing issue: liberals and conservatives are upset about the way it is being used. So if a crappy law was being moved through the statehouse just to mollify people, there's a good chance that action against a weak bill could be mobilized. And if the legislators involved were taken to task for pushing a weak bill, I have no doubt they'd decide that the "right thing to do" would be to work for law with real power, if only to keep their jobs out of jeopardy from pissed off constituents.

Mostly

[DemonFighterLives]

14. Thank you for your knowledge and posts

I always wondered when this ED stuff was passed what was gong to happen.
Well, I'm getting my answers quicker than I thought. The criminals need to make their moves now while the poor are ripe for plucking.
This is an issue where the Libertarians should be outraged and I think they are.

[SoCalDem]

13. Google Curtis-Mathes Bush

Eminent Domain should be used ONLY for public works projects..PERIOD..

Everyone's property is in jeopardy unless there is a tight rein on the process.. In every "changing" neighborhood in the country, there is the possibility that someone richer than you, can go before a board of his cronies, and decide that your property would be "better off" in the hands of someone who can generate higher revenues for the community..

It's like a rich childless couple being chosen to raise a poor person's baby...because they would be better parents and raise the baby with "more" than you can..

[jmm]

3. I saw this on CNN too.

A Florida woman who was protesting this said she checked the study the government did on how it would help the community and found it was full of errors. Many houses where she and her neighbors lived for example were declared vacant lots.

[DemonFighterLives]

9. Even Soledad said, "some of them look like nice houses"

And Miles said, "they better figure it out before they start up the bulldozers"

[MostlyLurks]

4. This could be a big aspect in state races in the next year.

Since this is a state issue, Democratic candidates for state Senate and House seats could make some serious noise if an aspect of their campaigns was ED reform/clarification bills.

I hope the people at PLAN have drafted or are drafting some boilerplate language they can drop on the doorstep of every state Dem candidate in the country. That's especially crucial because the recent Supreme Court decision (which was decided properly, I might add) was made by the supposedly "liberal" portion of the court. Progressive, liberal and Democratic candidates will get pilloried with the ED decision as election times nears, but they could turn it into a strength if they had legislation in hand to say "this is the ED bill I will present to the state legislature on day 1 of my term".

Mostly

[DemonFighterLives]

6. There is much more going on than I was aware of

http://www.blightfraud.com/



Comments on Joint California Senate and Assembly Hearing on Redevelopment and Blight
This hearing was held on Wednesday, October 26, 2005 at the Weingart City Heights Library, which is located at 3795 Fairmount Avenue, San Diego. State Senator Christine Kehoe, the Chair of the Senate Local Government Committee, chaired the hearing. Peter Detwiler, who is a Consultant to the Senate Local Government Committee explained the content of the Briefing Paper for the Joint Interim Hearing. This Briefing Paper included the fact that Redevelopment agencies recieved 9.8% of California's property tax revenues. These billions of dollars should be used to balance the State's budget and restore necessary services. Riverside County has the highest percentage (25.2%) going to the redevelopment agencies.

There was a section on "Understanding Redevelopment: City Heights Urban Village". The Paticipants including one of the developers were very satisifed with the project. The public buildings created by the project are quite impressive. However, this fact is irrelevant to the question of the use of emminent domain to transfer property from one private party to another private party. None of the individuals who had lost their property during this redevelopment project were on this panel.

http://ij.org/private_property/connecticut/index.html

Susette Kelo dreamed of owning a home that looked out over the water. She purchased and lovingly restored her little pink house where the Thames River meets the Long Island Sound in 1997, and has enjoyed the great view from its windows ever since. The Dery family, down the street from Susette, has lived in Fort Trumbull since 1895; Matt Dery and his family live next door to his mother and father, whose parents purchased their house when William McKinley was president. The richness and vibrancy of this neighborhood reflects the American ideal of community and the dream of homeownership.

Tragically, the City of New London is turning that dream into a nightmare.

[havocmom]

12. Middle class America finding out they mean diddly squat now.

Finding out on many fronts that the American Dream they have worked hard for is now dust. They obeyed by the rules, did all the correct things, played it safe, they believed they could attain security.

Reality is setting in. The Robber Barons have been stringing workers and professionals along for decades with Play nice, work hard and live happily ever after. Hope many have not taken advantage of those aggressive campaigns to get people to take out big equity loans.

[DemonFighterLives]

15. Everything is in jeopardy

The rich elites are able to do whatever they want.
I call them dubby's base - the haves and the have mores.
Greed is never ending.

[DemonFighterLives]

16. Hicup

:dem:

[sweetheart]

17. Eminent domain should be applied to patents

Then, if a drugs patent is in the public interest to own, it buys out the patent holder. If this were
done with AIDS drugs and some other public health areas, it would be a very fair use of eminent domain,
extended in to intellectual property.

[DemonFighterLives]

18. Haven't seen that use or even the thought of it

Good Idea! I suppose the repukes would think that is communism, eh.
:)

[Jim__]

19. It is the end of a democratic US.

Freedom in this country is largely determined by the ability to own property.The current uses of Eminent Domain essentially take that right away from the middle class.

Either this use of eminent Domain will be stopped; or freedom is dead in the US.

[Toots]

21. Eminent Domain has been around since day one

What the Extreme Court did was make it entirely a local matter. They ruled that local government could make their own rules on it. If you want to insure the abuses now occuring don't happen in your area get a law passed restricting it. A lot of places have already done so.

[MostlyLurks]

24. ED was always a states issue though, wasn't it?

All SCOTUS did was codify the fact that it's a state's rights issue if I understand correctly. As it was explained to me, they really had only two options with regard to this decision:
1. Pass ED issues to the state level for each state legislature to work with (which is what they did).
OR
2. Strictly clarify what constitutes a public good in the sense they would have had to say that the New Concord plan did not demonstrate sufficient evidence of "public good". This would have necessitated that they overturn a state law (the New Concord action was taken by the city based on an existing state law) and spell out specifically what would be a public use or public good. And that tends to lead to other problems: what if a new form of public use arises two decades from now? Since SCPTUS didn't include it in this ruling (because it hadn't been thought of yet), it would be against the law to use it in ED.

The option to overturn ED or make it illegal was not even a possibility because it's in the Constitution and to declare it illegal would have been a breach of their powers.

As it was explained to me, the only rational decision was to leave it to the states, and that's exactly what they did.

The irony is that the decision was a golden egg for state's rights, and yet the strongest state's rights advocates on the court - Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist - voted against it, which would leads me to think their convictions aren't as strong as their desire to hand down popular rulings.

As I say, this is how I've had it explained to me by an attorney friend, so I'm open to input and it's certainly possible I'm misinterpreting what I was told, but that's how I understand it.

Mostly

[Toots]

26. Yes you are absolutely correct

I did not state my position well. It has always been a State's issue and just got clarified as to the extent of their authority..

[Strong Atheist]

20. I hope not!

:scared:

This has united the right and left and EVERYONE; NO ONE likes this decision except the businesses.
BTW, John Paul Stevens, that fountain of conservatism, wrote the majority opinion.

Majority and concurring opinions
On June 23, 2005, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, found for the City of New London. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion; he was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg

[MostlyLurks]

22. Ignore, replied to wrong post. n/t

[No Exit]

23. It fits beautifully in Bushworld, but this one's not entirely repukes'

fault.

The big case which has encouraged this sort of land-grab by the rich and powerful was Kelo v. City of New London, et al, which came out in summer of this year.

A summary of this frightening case is found at:

http://www.prestongates.com/publications/pubdetail.asp?id=624

Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter created this horrible ruling.

Justices O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas dissented from the ruling and thus were on the losing side (along with the rest of us).

The justices and who appointed each one:
Stevens - Gerald Ford
Kennedy - Reagan
Breyer - Clinton
Ginsburg - Clinton
Souter - Poppy Bush
O'Connor - Reagan
Rehnquist - Nixon
Scalia - Reagan
Thomas - Poppy Bush

Thus we see that two of the justices who supported this travesty of a ruling were appointed by Bill Clinton.

However, the other three offending (IMO) justices were appointed by republicans.

If only our Clinton justices had taken a stand on the other side, we, the people, would have won. (I sympathize with Ginsburg and Breyer maybe not wanting to stand on the same side of anything with, say, Scalia, but... they needed to just hold their noses.)

I will say this: the other day a Kool-aid drinker I know murmured something about "that Ginsburg woman and eminent domain", and I couldn't say anything in her defense regarding THIS case. But I should've at least stepped up and pointed out that this wrongheaded opinion was actually delivered by a Ford appointee, and backed by two other Reagan/Bush appointees. Which means more republican-appointees than democrat-appointees were in favor of this travesty.

What to do? The hope lies with the state legislatures. They can pass legislation which will (I hope) neuter this freak-of-nature ruling. Oh--and I wish the people of New Hampshire VERY well in their push to use eminent domain to condemn Justice Souter's picturesque farmhouse. Hey, that farmhouse isn't producing enough tax revenue as a home! It can produce more revenue as a lovely bed-and-breakfast!

"Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter’s land.

Justice Souter’s vote in the “Kelo vs. City of New London” decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter’s home."

(snip)

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

[MostlyLurks]

28. A simple reply does not exist, that's true.

However, for those who are willing to listen to more than soundbites, there is an explanation. See my post #24 for information.

In a nut shell, the majority decision was not an affirmation of ED - ED is a Constitutionally mandated fact. It CANNOT be overturned or outlawed as a concept because it is a part of the Constitution - it would be like SCOTUS attempting to outlaw Congress.

What SCOTUS did was to codify the concept that ED is a state issue, not a federal issue and therefore each state has the right to legislate use of ED as it sees fit. The ruling, in fact, should put a smile on the face of any good "state's rights" Republican. The fact that almost every Republican finds the ruling abhorrent is a testament to
1)the complicity of the media in dumbing down how it reports on issues
2) the fact that US-based conservatives and Republicans have no idea what crap they're spouting when they talk about "federalism" or state's rights.

Mostly

[No Exit]

30. Well,

as I said (but did not emphasize enough):

What to do? The hope lies with the state legislatures. They can pass legislation which will (I hope) neuter this freak-of-nature ruling.

I understand that eminent domain is an old and seminal concept here, but needless to say, I entirely disagree with the concept that taking private land in order to just gouge more tax revenues out of it is a legitimate "public use". So I guess I should stay out of Connecticut. (Hey... isn't the Kennebunkport compound in Connecticut? Hmmm.)

You certainly nailed it about the dumbing down of the media. But then, when one's favorite "media" consists of stupid radio idiots, with little education, screaming platitudes and soundbites and polemics at one, a person (repuke) is bound to come out with a really stupid worldview.

And, yes, about those states' rights... Funny how, if their favorite golden idol abandons such concepts, the repuke voters also throw them under the bus.

[MostlyLurks]

31. State Legislatures Indeed

Right on there.

I even think this could be used by Democratic candidates as a major issue to gain moderate and left Republican votes: release an ED bill in which use is clarified and limited and tell voters that bill will be the first one they introduce on their first day working for the people.

I have to say though, I disagree wholeheartedly with you regarding the use of ED to take Souter's house as some sort of game of one-upsmanship or "told you so". That sort of stuff really only serves to muddy the waters. Souter was right to side with the Constitution. Calling to take his house via ED make it seem like somehow he ruled in favor of ED when in fact he did not - he upheld his duty as a member of SCOTUS and ruled in favor of the Constitution, not in favor of ED. So on that score, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Mostly

[No Exit]

32. I guess it all goes back to when I first (as a teenager) learned

that Congress is exempt from many or most of the laws it passes.

Yeah, I know the Supreme Court is not the same as Congress.

I guess I'm just sick and tired of seeing the elites pronounce from above, without ever missing a meal or a good night's sleep (or a good night's carousing, if they desire it.)

I guess that with this particular republican culture firmly in place in both the White House and the Congress, such feelings have probably become epidemic among "the rest of us".

[seabeyond]

25. i am seeing better how they work in my area, panhandle of texas

i am also seeing gosh, three families just last couple days moving to ohio. that seems to be a srtong state for them, hence the corruption we are seeing. one is going to an university to be dean of pharnacy. scary stuff yawl

[No Exit]

27. We need to encourage local governments to seize the justices' homes

and other real estate that they, well, don't really NEED. That real estate could be put to better use! It could be turned into wholesome commercial enterprises that would better serve the communities by providing MUCH more tax revenue than the real estate is currently bringing in.

They've already started such an action on Justice Souter's picturesque farmhouse. Now let's see what ripe plums our needy local governments can pluck from Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Breyer, and Ginsburg.

[MostlyLurks]

29. You've misunderstood the ruling. Read post #24.

The majority ruled in favor of the Constitution. The minority ruled in favor of a popular decision that smacks the Constitution in the face.

Mostly