http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=8872948

Property owner in incorporated city limits? Yeah right, you subserviant bitch. Bow before your corporate/federal overlords.

Enjoy, my fellow American cattle.

I wondered how that case would turn out. Can't wait to read the legal justifications for this.

Yep. This is horsehit. I think they are trying to use the "Imminent Domain" excuse here.

Eminent Domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain)

...and, as a country, it's a pretty important ace to have up your sleeve.

If this case was about eradicating urban blight, I might feel differently, but I can't countenance forcing people to leave their homes to appease private corporations or to install a mall. I feel like I stepped into Bizarro World, but I have to agree with Thomas, O'Connor, Scalia, and Rehnquist.

We the FEDERAL government whips out Eminent Domain if, say, we discover uranium under your house, or we decide it's the best place to place the new anti-immigrant turret.

Your local government is pretty fond of getting freeways put through with them. It might be ugly, but, well, you don't think everyone along I-10 just volunteered to put that monster in, do you?

Building the new <insert community thing here> isn't a far stretch.

There's a big difference between the local government acquisitioning land for things like highways and other government owned public use items, and grabbing the land so that PRIVATE companies (non-governmental) can build a riverfront hotel, health club and offices (which is what the land in this article is going to be used for).

As O'Conner wrote in her dissent, "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms." In other words, if Walmart 'talks' to the local government, and convinces them that it's in the 'local public interest' that a Walmart be built, the local government can acquire the houses/land, 'compensating' the local owners for a fraction of the land value, and build a Walmart... again under the auspices of 'for the public good'.

It might be said that building a Walmart is stretching the idea... but I dont see much of a reach to go from a health club and riverfront hotel to a Walmart.

I'm not going to out-debate O'Conner, but..

I support things like building ballparks (stadiums, arenas) and waterfront districts. They add value to cities. If you're going to do it for freeways, doing it for haute culture shopping isn't a stretch - and, as much as you may (or may not) hate them, Walmart isn't far off either.

Wal-Mart is far more destructive than constructive, but that's a whole 'nother thread. With this decision, private property is not necessarily private property, and "public use" now means "private, corporate use." This is an astounding decision, in ironic brotherhood with the recent Raich judgment (on medical marijuana), which determined that regulation of "interstate commerce" gave the federal government power over activities that are neither interstate nor commerce. Wealthy, influential developers (campaign contributions in hand) can steal your homes, no road building required. Like Raich, it's an ugly decision and surprising to boot.

Well, it would be in the public good to erase or pay down the national debt, so I guess private citizens' bank accounts are fair game.

Seriously tho, the conservative pro-business, anti-worker climate currently on the rise in this country should leave little surprise at the Supreme Court moving in the direction of corporate/business rights vs individual citizen rights.

Likewise, I was astounded by this- but after having gone through a forced annexation threat recently, I'm not surprised.

I read this and thought, ok so the conservatives on the Court are rulling against the corporations and the liberal members are ruling for the coporations. what a fucked up world we live in, where a hotel takes precedence over a home thats been in a family for 50 years.

Rev
"putting up sign in front of house, FOR SALE before the goverment sells it for me"

If these people had been smart. They would of found an endagendered cave beetle or salamander on the property to keep anyone from ever building there.

It works well here in Austin to stop development projects.

If these people had been smart. They would of found an endagendered cave beetle or salamander on the property to keep anyone from ever building there.

of course if this were true then they'd kick the people out of their homes AND there would be no development

That's a pretty unusual interpretation of eminent domain.

It is widely accepted in democratic states that for public works (roads, phone land lines, sewers etc) private property can be seized in exchange for compensation.

Moreover in certain places in Europe the "treasures of earth" (gas, oil, minerals etc) are the property of the state so finding oil in your garden surely results in the loss of your land and you will be worse off at the end than if you didn't find any. (an interesting trivia for anyone from Texas ;) )

However supporting business development by invoking eminent domain for the 'public good' is a rather disturbing precedent.

I can't recall the exact plot but wasn't something like this happening in Robocop?

However supporting business development by invoking eminent domain for the 'public good' is a rather disturbing precedent.

Exactly! Welcome to the New World Order.

Excerpts from the NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/politics/24scotus.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=e67897e89988bae0&hp&ex=1119672000&partner=homepage) (emphasis mine):
The 5-to-4 decision cleared the way for the City of New London, Conn., to proceed with a large-scale plan to replace a faded residential neighborhood with office space for research and development, a conference hotel, new residences and a pedestrian "riverwalk" along the Thames River.

The project, to be leased and built by private developers, is intended to derive maximum benefit for the city from a $350 million research center built nearby by the Pfizer pharmaceutical company.

New London, deemed a "distressed municipality" by the state 15 years ago, has a high unemployment rate and fewer residents today than it had in 1920.

The owners of 15 homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, including one woman who was born in her house 87 years ago and has lived there since, had resisted the plan and refused the city's offer of compensation.

...

The homeowners, represented by a public-interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, which has conducted a national litigation campaign against what it calls eminent domain abuse, argued that taking property to enable private economic development, even development that would provide a public benefit by enhancing the tax base, could never be a "public use."

In its view, the only transfers of property that qualified were those that gave actual ownership or use to the public, like for a highway or a public utility.

But the majority concluded on Thursday that public use was properly defined more broadly as "public purpose." Justice Stevens noted that earlier Supreme Court decisions interpreting the public use clause of the Fifth Amendment had allowed the use of eminent domain to redevelop a blighted neighborhood in Washington, to redistribute land ownership in Hawaii and to assist a gold-mining company, in a decision by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1906.


...


In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor objected that "the words 'for public use' do not realistically exclude any takings, and thus do not exert any constraint on the eminent domain power."

Justice O'Connor said, "Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded."


...


"Who among us can say she already makes the most productive or attractive use of her property?" Justice O'Connor asked.

She added: "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."


...


Justice Stevens said that states remained free to place restrictions on their own use of eminent domain power through their own constitutions and laws, as many have; California, for example, has a law restricting to blighted areas the use of eminent domain for economic development.

Scott G. Bullock, the lawyer who argued the case for the New London homeowners, said in an interview that his organization, the Institute for Justice, would accept the court's invitation and "continue the fight in the state supreme courts."

Comrades,
Relax, we all be well cared for on the collective farm and have plenty of vodka.
In five years the plan will be complete and we will return to live in mansions.
Long live the revolution, Long live Comrade Stalin.

*passes Lleauric a second helping of borscht*

So, why haven't you kids latched onto this yet.

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


Judge Souter to lose land to eminent domain?



By Eric Fleischauer
DAILY Staff Writer
eric@decaturdaily.com (eric@decaturdaily.com)· 340-2435

If you need a place to stay in New Hampshire, U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter's property in the town of Weare may just meet your needs.

Californian Logan Darrow Clements of Freestar Media LLC filed papers Monday that he hopes will eventually permit him to take Souter's home in Weare, N.H., through eminent domain.

Clements said that, if he has his way, Souter's property will eventually be the home of The Lost Liberty Hotel.

The effort follows a Monday decision by the Supreme Court that ruled 5-4 that federal law does not prevent local governments from using eminent domain to take property from one private owner and give it to another, provided the action is intended for the public good.

Souter joined in the majority opinion. Clements said his decision to pursue Souter's property was an easy one.

"First of all, I knew his address," Clements said.

Souter was appointed by then-President George H.W. Bush, a fact that gave Clements extra incentive to pursue ownership of the house on Cilley Hill Road.

In a letter to the code enforcement officer of Weare, Clements wrote, "although this property is owned by an individual ... a recent Supreme Court case clears the way for this land to be taken by the Government of Weare through eminent domain and given to my LLC for the purposes of building a hotel."

Clements said a hotel would better serve the public interest because it would attract economic development and increase tax revenues.

"We are planning to go ahead for real if the money comes in," Clements said Tuesday. "So far, people are throwing money at me." He said he has received dozens of investment proposals, ranging from $25 to $50,000. He said he did not even come up with the plan until Monday afternoon.

"Souter was appointed by a Republican and should have known better," Clements said, "although Republicans are really good at disappointing us."

He hopes his efforts get the attention of President Bush.

"It looks like there is going to be another vacancy (on the court) and I hope George Bush the Second chooses his nominees a little more carefully than his father did," Clements said.

"We want to send that signal." In the meantime, he is looking for a good hotel architect.

First of all, I knew his address....

HA!

Yeah, I saw that in the news yesterday. Poetic justice at it's finest if he can pull it off.

Oh this is rich and I hope to hell this guy can pull it off. What justice, that will teach the high court a thing or two!




Well one can wish .....