Asymmetrical Information

Good idea - Clint Bollick and his team deserve your support. The battle now has to be fought at the grassroots in any community where the pols and developers try this. In Coatesville, PA they tried to take a farm in the neighboring municipality for a public golf course. The farmer put together a big coalition of outraged open spacers, free marketers and property owners.
Tough fight, didn't win until the chief proponent quit to take another job. Now, at least two of the four councilmen who pushed the taking went down to defeat in the recent primary. Don't let the pols in your community get away with it!!!

The other place to work is at the state level. Only a handful of states have laws which prevent the type of eminent domain proceedings which were the subject of the case. The rest of the states need to be made aware of how much the people detest the idea of taking someone's property and giving it to a developer.

Note that a state constitution can put tighter limits on eminent domain.

I read the opinions on this case, and I find it hard to get too worked up about it. If you find the idea of eminent domain objectionable then certainly you will find any expansion of it objectionable. But what the court decided is basically that it is not feasible for them to get involved in every possible application. They left it up to the local and state goverments to decide what constitutes a public purpose. Should we be concerned that local governments might get out of control as a result of this decision? I'm not. We know where they sleep.

Randy, by the time a city councilman gets voted out, the individual landonwer has quite often already lost his property, and thus lost his opportunity for justice. To embrace your reasoning, the 5th Amendment would have to read, "Municipalities and states can seize property for any reason, as long as compensation is paid.". To adopt the type of judicial reasoning in which terms like "public use" or "interstate commerce" have exactly zero meaning, other than whatever an entity with political power asserts, is to strip all meaning from the concept of the rule of law. If the words don't actually mean anything, why did anyone even bother to draw up the document in that Philly summer heat? The fellas shoulda' just hung out in the taverns for a few weeks, agreed to hold an election, and then just make things up as they went along.

By the way, pretending that the term "public purpose" is synonymous with the term "public use" is yet another example of just making stuff up. Why does anybody even bother to consult the document anymore? Every case argued before the Court should begin with a blank slate, as if there was no Constitution, and the litigants should just appeal to the Justices as if they ruled by Divine Right. It would be more intellectually honest than the charade which takes place today.

I hear you Will. But the transition from public use to public purpose happened long before this case. You use the phrase "...whatever an entity with political power asserts", and that is very much the key point. The trick is to keep an eye on those to whom we give political power.

Personally, I object to the idea of eminent domain entirely. I don't think it should even be in the constitution. If the powers that be want to take property they should just be honest about it and use force. The government wants to use a piece of land. The owner won't sell. The government makes a case to the court that this land is required for public use. The court decides. Such a system would decrease the use of eminent domain because the courts would always hesitate and because the political fallout would be extreme. The current system actually encourages the expansion of eminent domain by assuming that all that is needed to make things right is monetary compensation.

The fellas shoulda' just hung out in the taverns for a few weeks, agreed to hold an election, and then just make things up as they went along.

They didn't want to be that much like England, Will.

Randy, I agree that this case is an extension of previous wrongly decided cases, but it is an extension which further expands the power of the state, to the point now where there is essentially no limit on what elected officials can do in regards to individual property rights, as long as compensation is paid. If this can be done, there is no reason why local elected bodies cannot pass a law which assesses a $100,000 fine against a local newspaper which deigns to criticize the elected body. Again, if words have no meaning, there is no reason why the elected body cannot do this, and the solution of voting the elected offcials out in 3 or 4 years is insufficient to this type tyranny.

Will,

Elected officials have power, no question about it. In the end, the constraint on them is not the law, but the vigilance of the governed. If elected officials cannot be controlled through legal means, then they must be controlled through extra-legal means. Those fellas in Philadelphia knew this very well.

The question I have about this case is - why didn't the homeowner's neighbors stand up for them? I can think of only two reasons - they didn't care - or they wanted the development. The court said it was up to the locals to decide. It sounds to me like they did.

Well, yes, randy. It was once fairly common for the locals in some places to string up folks so unfortunate to be in the minority in terms of skin color. Majoritarian tyranny is no less tyrannical when engaged in through a city council, as opposed to the Congress of the United States. I guess my beef is with a majority that is not willing to constrain itself through the rule of law. It is unfortunate that five Supreme Court Justices so often comply with the paradigm.

Randy,

The question I have about this case is - why didn't the homeowners' neighbors stand up for them?

Um, because they'd already taken the proffered deal and were busy packing their stuff? From what I've read of this case, the immediate neighbors of the holdouts had all agreed to sell.

Let's see...local officials seize property to "create jobs" and increase "tax revenues." Local coffers are full, so the local officials vote themselves pay raise.

Since the majority of people in the town are not affected by the seizing of private property, plus they got all these new jobs, they are quite content with the performance of the local officials and vote them back into office.

Other than in the 8? or so states where this is illegal, what is to stop any locale from doing the same? The press? Does anyone see a conflict of interest, that, if in the private sector, would have Eliot Spitzer salivating like a pit bull in a packing house?

Jane, thanks for posting this link. I was appalled when I read the decision and was unsure what I could do about it. Eminent domain is one of the worst laws to ever hit the books. I have a feeling that if Randy were forced to sell his home for whatever his local government considered "fair value" so that they could put up a Costco, his feelings on the matter might change substantially.

donating to IJ is all well and good, but something more should be done.

show the court the damage and danger of this decision! get local governments to condemn the property of the traitorous 5, their past and present clerks (and future clerks as they join the team), and all of their immediate families. maybe add in federal pols that don't try to stop this, or just reps and sens who own property in opposite party jurisdictions. make it clear to the poweerful responsible that this can be brought about to damage them and force them to reverse this tryannical ruling.

now we're talking about potential bad acts. go out and show those bad acts: seize churches to put in walmarts, seize walmart's parking lot to put in a costco, seize ford's plants and give it to toyota, etc. etc. with good examples that the powerful won't like and can't stop (given that it is now settled law) this seems like the best strategy for immediate reversal. state by state lobbying is good too, but some serious high powered blows would be even better. it doesn't even matter if it's against dems or reps, big business or liberal ngos and foundations, showing the elite that they need to roll this back and quick is important and can easily be done given the power of states and localities. Walmart is vulnerable in lefty towns, lefties are vulnerable in red towns & states. lets get to it.

Hey, great minds think alike.

Jonah Goldberg got a letter from a reader the other day:

Jonah,
The quickest way to reverse Kelo is to find some conservative town in Utah somewhere to shut down an abortion clinic in order to make room for a Wal-Mart. Also, that would be the most fun way to get Kelo reversed.

Justice Kennedy has seemingly decided to use foreign legal authorities to decide cases. This time he has consulted Chairman Mao's little red book. Next time perhaps the Koran will prompt him to endorse stoning adulters. It's refreshing to see law being applied so randomly.

yeah, I agree that this verdict is terrible, partly cause i live in chicago with a notoriously corrupt local government.

Will is right that "public use" has no more meaning that "interstate commerce" anymore. i always thought emminent domain should be restricted to absolute must have cases like -

the neighbors on either side of you have sold and there is now railroad track on either side of you that must be connected for sake of people for hundreds of miles, please sell.

has degraded into, gee, i think the state of connecticut needs its 453rd strip mall and the only other feasible locations in this little town have politically connected people living there, so screw you - take what we're giving you and leave.

Assuming you don't have further development plans of your own for the property, someone was suggesting the "enemy of my enemy" approach -- just stop up the nearest culvert, open up the hose, and while the front yard is aquiring a wetlands, release a few endangered rodents into the back yard. Then, call up the EPA and ask them to come have a look.

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