Third Party & Independents: Archives

As I understand it, the Law was originally written to cope for emergencies like floods, earthquakes, etc. Its one of those laws that can mean anything because you just don’t know what emergency can turn up.

Fat chance you can win. Corporations are the only Gods and George W. Bush is their one true prophet.

Welcome to the Future.

‘Fat chance you can win. Corporations are the only Gods and George W. Bush is their one true prophet.’

I am going to go out on a limb here and GWB has absolutely nothing to do this with this case.

Misha, with you 100% on this one. In many cases I have read about, a city or county invokes eminent domain for economic development selling the land after the forced sale to business parks, or General Motors, etc. It is a crime. And by all that is right and decent, Kelo should win her case.

Eminent Domain in my mind is just an extension of manifest destiny doctrine which simply states might makes right. In this case, it is economic and lobbyist might as opposed to might of arms.

“Fat chance you can win. Corporations are the only Gods and George W. Bush is their one true prophet. “

Aldous- you might be interested to know that it is the type of conservative justices that Bush wants to appoint that are mostly likely to rule with Ms. Kelo here. Traditionally, in property rights cases, the more liberal justices tend to completely deferential to the supreme court in all property rights cases, including emminent domain cases. The conventional wisdom, at least, is that Ms. Melor is most likely to win Justice Thomas’ vote, whereas almost no one thinks she has any shot of winning the votes of Stevens and Ginsburg.

i meant to say “completely deferrential to the state”

Misha, why do I have the feeling you can’t back up that claim of liberal justices not supporting or rejecting plaintiff claims where eminnent domain is involved?

Got any case references you can link to, or is this just a partisan comment? Seems to me, we will see the liberal justices side with Kelo. Liberals tend to side with the little guy in such cases where money and power overwhelm the rights of the little guy.

Great post Misha.
Kansas City practices theft like this almost daily and many people have had enough. Signs are going up everywhere and people are standing their ground. Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of one such incident.

David, it is by no means a partisan comment, but rather the conventional wisdom that my professor, who wrote an amicus brief in support of New London in this very case, told me in his estimation of which way he thought the case would come out. He is a liberal, by the way.

there are no transcripts from the oral arguments, but this is what one person who was at the oral arguments wrote down…

Justice Antonin Scalia … describes Horton’s position as: “You can always take from A and give to B, so long as B is richer.”

Anyway, David. This is one of those things that I cannot prove to you, even though it is well accepted among the academic legal community as far as I know. But I would ask you to keep this comment in mind when this decision comes out- because my current prediction is 8-2 in favor of New London, with only Scalia and Thomas dissenting (and maybe only Thomas). yes, the situation is that bad.

Going up against Pfizer, one of the Bush administration’s biggest campaign donors. I wonder who Pfizer’s lobbyists have been talking to lately. Good luck to her. Keep us informed, Misha.

I had thought the case has nothing to do with Pfizer or President Bush ?

It was my understanding that Pfizer has already built a new plant there, and the city wants to take the land to sell/give to a developer to build upscale condos to bring in more taxes.

Someone could argue that more tax money would help the city as a whole, however if you use that for a standard why not doze down all the poor neighborhoods and build expencive homes for rich people?

Misha, I think you need to read further into the case, I think the only link to Pfizer is the thinking by the city that rich Pfizer employees might buy or rent some of the condos.

In my opinion its just a land grab by the city to bring in more taxes.
I don’t see where this case/issue should be partisan, and I hope all three columns could unite on the side of the homeowners.

Misha, thank you for the response. You are of course closer to the workings of the S. Court than I am. What would be the rationale of the liberal judges in finding against Kelo? Historical precedence? If so why? Because it would open flood gates to suits for past eminent domain wrongs?

You really have piqued my interest, now. Thanks.

Beagle- we had the counsel for Kelo speak to our chapter of the federalist society the week before the argument, so I do more about the history of this case than you gave me credit for. Anyway, what the city was doing was taking this property for the benefit of the Pfizer complex- that is, support for the new Pfizer plant (for an undermined purpose, in the case of some of the plots- but there is speculation that housing for Pfizer employees will be built there, I believe). On the other hand, the government had not stepped in, Pfizer would have had to negotiate with these land owners to buy this property. You are, of course, correct that Bush has nothing to do with this.

David- the stated rational will be that “public use” can include the development of the town- including getting higher tax income. Basically, it will be that “public use” is not a serious limitation, but rather up to the government ot determine what is public us and what is not.

The actual justificaiton is that ever since the rejection of the Lockner-era jurisprudence (in the 1930s), liberals have taken a completely hands-off approach to any sort of government action that has to do with economic or property rights. Basically, they beleive that people’s property rights are adequately protected by the political process (unlike their privacy rights), so they courts should not step in to protect those who lost out in the political process. I think its really bizzare to say that property rights, especially in cases like Ms. Kelo, are actually protected by the political process, but I am just trying to lay out the rationale I think they would give.

David my friend,

I think I would agree with Misha’s opinion that the more liberal judges will likely vote against the property owners.( and I was the one that didn’t think it should be partisan).

Conservatives tend to support person property rights most often, as do many libertarians.

Liberertarians often will side with liberal groups when the issue involves enviormental things however.

I have no links to post for you, however the case of the “spotted owl” comes to mind, where that was the case in the many courts it went through.

Montana just passed a law that uses “personal property rights” as a basis against the wolf stocking program there.

I’ll search for that link.

David,

Heres the link

http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/HJ0029.htm#About

Misha,

I give you oceans of credit for this article and your knowledge and views on it.

I agree with everything except Pfizer being part of it, even the link you posted said that.

Great article by the way.

Misha
Just a link I found concerning Kelo and others.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&u=/usatoday/20050222/cm_usatoday/yourhomeisyourcastleuntilthecitysaysitisnt&printer=1

Great article, Misha. Thanks for bringing in a legitimate political issue that isn’t on most people’s radar screens.

Misha,

You’re absolutely correct. I decided to locate my office downtown in my city because of the economics. This issue is huge downtown because like in most cities downtowns are the most neglected parts.

Virtually all of the city’s ‘redevelopment plans’ revolve around ‘assembling’ parcels and ‘preparing’ them for developers. i.e. exactly what you have described as an abuse of emminent domain.

Aldous,

As I understand it, the Law was originally written to cope for emergencies like floods, earthquakes, etc. Its one of those laws that can mean anything because you just don’t know what emergency can turn up.

Fat chance you can win. Corporations are the only Gods and George W. Bush is their one true prophet.

Welcome to the Future.

As I understand it, eminent domain is in the constitution.

But here’s what I don’t understand, Aldous, how can you attribute this to corporations? or George Bush? In most cases, cities like mine are doing this of their own accord and practically twist the arms of developers to make them develop in places like downtown. Meanwhile, the smaller entrepenuer developers are brushed aside, by the city mind you! Investors who actually invest in repairing and refurbishing older buildings in bad parts of town face more than just market risks, because there is always the added risk that the city will condemn the property you’ve invested in and take it away from you to give to some mega developer who can come in and do entire blocks.

Another tip… it’s all about the property tax. Yep, that’s right. Greed. Profit. Government will throw out a 92 year old lady, from the house she’s lived in all her life, so that they can give it to a corporate developer to build big empty buildings. Meanwhile her 100 year old house, which ought to be a historical landmark, is bulldozed and made into a dirt lot awaiting the tired and slow machinery of government to get around to giving it away.

Yes, that is a true example and I know the woman. All she wanted was to live out the rest of her life in her home. Did the city care? Of course not. Yet some will try to tell me that government power is softer and kinder than ‘fascist’ corporations or that this is an example of corporations corrupting government.

Anyway, this is one of my pet peeves. I’m glad you brought it up Misha.

David,

Property rights is right on the mark if you want to understand why liberal judges might side against the land owners. There is a liberal tradition of looking at the interests of the society over the interests of the individual, especially in cases where it just involves the ‘baser economic issues’.

Also, you have to look at the history of the liberal policies of urban renewal in the 40’s-60’s and the use of eminent domain to accomplish their goals. To be sure Republicans were involved and have been involved. No doubt, they are the kind of moderates working with democrats that might garner praise here otherwise. Historically, urban redevelopment or ‘urban renewal’ has been predominantly a liberal democrat enterprise, part of the post-war continuation of the new deal and transition into the great society.

I don’t have time to dig up many quotes but urban renewal and inner city projects during that time would be good key words to google.

Here’s one reference, apparently the communist chinese favor market forces more than most of our city leaders in capitalist America:

This study compares urban renewal in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s with inner-city redevelopment in China since the late 1980s. It finds that both programs use government authority and subsidies to make large-scale private or quasi-private investment attractive in the name of ameliorating living conditions. Cautiously applying Logan and Molotch�s “growth coalition” concept to China, the authors assert that a “growth machine” has formed during China�s economic decentralization processes. Despite the similarities, America�s urban renewal was an ill-fated federal program in which the local government and downtown business interests cooperated to boost declining inner-cities that were competing with burgeoning suburbs. In contrast, China�s redevelopment has been propelled by emerging local elites using decentralized state power to pursue fast growth in rising real estate markets. Greater insights into urban redevelopment can be gleaned through this comparative analysis. Journal of Planning and Education Research

——

Boston’s West End is the most well documented neighborhood destroyed by urban “renewal,” made famous initially by Herbert Gans’s book, The Urban Villagers, 1962. Although approximately 63 percent of the families displaced by urban renewal were African-American or Hispanic, this Boston community was mainly inhabited by working class Italians. It was a little piece of Italy, with narrow winding streets alive with urban social life. Too crowded and unAmerican for the middle class tastes of City planners, it fell to the bulldozer in 1959 and was replaced by high rise, expensive apartment buildings. yale.edu

The sad thing is that this tradition goes on today with much the same effects. All the ‘city cores’ that supposedly got fixed through Urban renewal are the very same areas redeveloopment agencies are busy spending billions of dollars ‘renovating’ today.

Good job Misha on beating me to this post - I was going to write on exactly this. It’s not only Pfizer - Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, and others have been taking advantage of twisting the meaning of “public good” to build new outlets, and for quite some time now. Costco has now decided that this isn’t very ethical, and wants to stop doing it… maybe. There’s a fundamental problem of big companies being able to wield enough political clout to be able to swing such a manuever, ala Bush’s steel tariffs in his first term. Is Bush to blame? Probably somewhat, but not more than Clinton, since the process has been going on for a while. The point is that it should be stopped, and we agree unanimously in this regard.

The laws surrounding eminent domain need to be rewritten, and there should be private retroactive compensation for those who were forced to sell their land off at below-market price. As a conservative, I don’t really care which party gets blamed more and which party gets credit for stopping the problem. I just want to see it fixed. Classic problem of government-knows-best nonsense.

I could be wrong, but, I will still put my bet on the liberal judges siding with Kelo, in this particular case and circumstance. It is one thing for eminent domain to serve the greater good for civil projects like roads, dams, etc. It is a clear and distinctly different case when corporations buy the assent of government in order to deprive individual citizens of their property rights only to enhance the future and potential property rights of corporate or business entities.

I think the liberals will side with Kelo. And I hope I am right on this.

More info about this case

http://washingtonpost.findlaw.com/supreme_court/docket/2004/February.html

The right to own private property is the basis of civilization. The particulars of this case make you want to immediately side with Kelo, but I don�t think the liberals on the court will because of the message it sends in other directions.

The biggest cause of takings has not been urban renewal or highways. It is the Endangered Species Act. If an endangered dragonfly turns up on the site where you planned to build your house, you can’t build you house. You get to keep your land, but most the of the value is stripped away. Think of how the spotted owl locked up thousands of hectares of timberland. Invoking this kind of taking is a favorite weapon of liberal NGOs. I think left leaning justices will be careful not to disarm them.

Totally off topic, but, David, I’m still waiting for your “Superior writing skilled self” to bring up a thread about minimum wage…smile

Misha�

We are in 100% agreement on this one; what the states are doing in this is wrong, wrong, wrong! I have every confidence however that the Supreme Court will find in the homeowners favor. Familiar by the Court to rule in their favor will spell the end of property rights as we know it in the country.

An interesting twist - the First Amendment meets eminent domain:

“Property rights: not a given for churches”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0216/p15s01-lire.html

Good topic. Another reason that am a non-partisan Centrist. Should only be uutilized for orig. intent. I term them modern Attila the Huns going gainst local community’s interests, even their votes regarding.
Many of these corporations have taken the tax incentives, etc. and then pulls out after they’re over and on to the next area for more of the same leaving more devastation after their plunders.

It amazes me that the laws keep on layering and layering to whatever in the sky.
My unique view has been that: Govt. at all levels (as well as corporations) need to be sliced and winnowed every decade…including all the laws.

So many issues to me are state interests vs. feds mucking in…then county’s interests vs. state mucking in.

Have thought for a long time that County level should be primo in our affairs as closer and more reachable.

I have to say, it pleases me to no end that people from all diverse political viewpoints seem to have come together on this issue. Thanks for your kind responses!

In your blog entry of February 24, 2005, you wrote that local governments are abusing the power eminent domain and seizing property from private citizens to benefit private corporations. Your discussion of the abuse of this power is further illuminated by this publication “Your Home is your Castle – until the city says it isn’t.” (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&u=/usatoday/20050222/cm_usatoday/yourhomeisyourcastleuntilthecitysaysitisnt&printer=1) This article explains the historical origins of eminent domain and how this concept has been manipulated. It says “‘Public use’ was redefined as ‘public purpose’ and later as ‘public benefit.’” This transition is accurately explained in your blog entry. The article then goes on to discusses the unfairness and corrupt actions of the government doing the “dirty work” for the private companies that hold the purse strings. The article sites two examples in which this occurs, including Kelo’s case. Overall, this article is an excellent additive piece to support your opinion.