By Craig
Last year the Supreme Court made a ruling that I knew was going to be trouble. Although some news stations covered, and pundits tried to beat it to death, I don't feel the true message about what just happened ever truly struck home with the American public. What ruling you may wonder? The Property Seizures ruling that allowed local government to take at will privately owned property and use it for their own use.
Now the law is actually not all that new. Almost all railroads, highways, and interstates all dealt with eminent domain. And for those issues, I understand how they can benefit all the public by the sheer use those modes of transportation. Back on June 23, 2005 when the Justices Affirm[ed] Property Seizures, they effectively said that local government always knows the most effective way to use the land on which you live or own. Therefore, since they know more than you, you are forced to surrender your private property.
There was some outrage when the ruling was handed down, but nearly enough for exactly what this would mean. In fact, I heard very little from anyone locally. Well now the issue has hit the town flat in the face. This past week, the Evansville City Government started their tyrannical use of force in adding private properties on the riverfront onto the Redevelopment Acquisition list.
The City of Evansville as well as the Supreme Court defend this ruling by saying that this allows "urban revitalization". Although eminent domain only satisfies the Fifth Amendment by allowing seizures for public use only, they claim that by revitalizing a part of a town or city, that it will bring jobs, which is a public use. But, that isn't a public use, that is a private use. Giving people work through the city is public use, not taking someone's private property, selling it to a company, and allowing them to do what they want with it, hiring who they want.
So what is the real reason this ruling came from the Supreme Court, and why was is it so sought after? Taxes. By building bigger buildings, increasing employment in that one area, but adding companies that would probably not be located there, the city increases their tax revenue. So since you are a private citizen and are pretty much tapped in the amount of tax you can pay, the city can remove you and tax someone else. Looks like the Supreme Court certainly had the constitution in mind when they made that ruling!
This is a dangerous ruling. In essence, although I may be dramatizing this a tad, what is to stop the local government to come to my neighborhood, decide that a mall would bring more jobs and more tax dollars to this area, and force all the residents to leave their homes? There isn't. Given their reasoning for this ruling, public use applies. The Shriner's here in town are the first victim. I just hope they do a better job of fighting this transgression better than the people in New London, CT.
Note: To view the article in the Courier and Press, you will need to sign up, but I recommend the time.
Tags: Eminent Domain , Supreme Court , Evansville, IN
January 24, 2006
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State and local law makers have told us nothing like this will ever happen in Missouri, but the last mall built in Saint Joseph, Missouri sets on land that was once pretty much a poor house. A place for the elderly that had no where to go. I wonder what they will build on our property. The fact that it is paid for and the taxes are paid on time no longer means a thing. If my wifes health was better we'd move out into the sticks. This is nothing but court condoned theft.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless America, God Save The Republic
I have to agree with you Craig but here's a twist that is not receiving much coverage in liberal slanted media that has now signed on to what may be the death sentence.
ReplyDeleteKelo has allowed local governments to push aside the First Amendment religious free expression and establishment challenges they might otherwise have courted when enacting its preferred government policies.
Take for instance, Sand Springs, Oklahamo, where, as reported in The New York Times, the mayor and council may invoke eminent domain to remove a church and replace it with shopping malls. The religious free expression challenge the church could have usedto stop this was undermined by the Court's own reasoning employed in Employment Division v. Smith as it was but the Court might have reversed course in part or in whole but now it doesn't matter. The state can invoke eminent domain and take the property, located in a blight community, by force in order to drum up tax revenues.
This of course would affect the liberals' religious sacred cows (religious minorities) just as much as the conservatives' religious sacred cows.
Now, if that was not enough, one need only look at yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer where a state court turned down a Philadelphia agency's invocation of eminent domain (sigh of relief) to remove a homeowner so it could build of all things, a religious school.
Now the establishment clause as of now bars the government from such funding but it would not deny the government the right to sell that property to among other groups, a religious establishment, particularly given the trend in recent establishment cases.
Can you imagine how us ACLU-types would feel when a local government agency seizes a Jewish synagogue for the construction of Christian school (or vice versa for that matter) purportedly to help the children trapped in a failing school district? And none of this, mind you, without a reversal in Establishment jurisprudence.
will the New York Times editorial board which praised Kelo sing a different tune? How stupid. They should never have supported New London in the first case.
The liberals and conservatives are generally shortsighted. In their quest to enact government policies that favor them, they justify the very powers that can be used against them.
Conservatives who once advocated for the right of students to form after-school religious groups now complain about those students now invoking those rights to form gay-straight alliances. Gays who silenced Laura Schlessenger get to watch the conservatives do the same to The Book of Daniel and other shows with liberal values.
Catholics so offended by the the Mary dung picture now complain when radical Muslims protest against purportedly anti-Muslim cartoons (not that these radicals would act any better given their record in Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia) while the New York Times which supported artistic expression in that case now cowers and refuses to show the anti-Muslim cartoons.
When activists on either side of a cultural divide enlist the support of the government to enact their policies, they give their opponents the same ammunition to turn the government on them when they finally lose that power.
Go figure.