Re Mandates: Didn't Kelo establish that the government could "take" on behalf of private entities

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

if it promoted the "general welfare" like they said an improved tax basis and supposed employment opportunities constituted? Doesn't Kelo validate mandates to private insurers? Isn't it a "taking" or a "tax" of your dollars delivered to a private entity purportedly for a greater good?

I always thought that decision will live in infamy for basically declaring that private property is a thing of the past. If the government wants your property or your dollars and they say it is good, then faggeddabodit. That, my friends, is when we were all fitted with the serf's shackles.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062300783.html

[wordpix]

1. and now they've kicked the homeowners out, Pfizer doesn't want the property

hmmm, wonder who it will end up with?

[quaker bill]

2. No, it didn't with this case

This case did not end rights to private property, or more specifically the 4th ammendment right to "due compensation" for government taking of private property. Government has always had the right under "emminent domain" to "take" private prpoperty, for "public purposes" upon "due compensation" to the owner. Historically, "public purposes" has always been understood as essentially govermental, things such as roads, schools, and various other clearly "public" (eg. governmental) purposes. That much had been settled law (albeit occasionally controversial), for easily 200 years.

Kelo simply expanded the notion of "public purpose" to a more abstract notion such as government facilitated "redevelopment" of "blighted areas" by private entities under a government facilitated contract. It did not void the right to "due compensation" under the 4th ammendment, it only expanded the circumstances where government could use the "emminent domain" powers it has always had. There are those who would argue that government always had this power and Kelo only clarified the definition. While I am not a lawyer, this is an area of law I have frequent contact with as I work with public works officials almost daily.

I do not belive that the 4th ammendment is actually implicated in HCR mandates in any manner. In a sense it cannot be as I do not believe that money is understood as "property" under the 4th ammendment, as this would create a do loop. If money is "property" and can only be "taken" after "due compensation" paid to the owner, it would be fairly easy to establish that the "fair market value" of $100 is $100. So the government could "take" $100 from you for a "public purpose" (health insurance) only after they paid you $100 in "due compensation". Emminent domain does not get the job done, the constitutional argument is elsewhere, given it exists at all.