States are moving to stop Supreme Court

[-Cp]

States Move to Blunt Effect of Supreme Court Eminent-Domain Ruling

By Maura Kelly Lannan Associated Press Writer Published: Jul 19, 2005

CHICAGO (AP) - Alarmed by the prospect of local governments seizing homes and turning the property over to developers, lawmakers in at least half the states are rushing to blunt last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the power of eminent domain.

In Texas and California, legislators have proposed constitutional amendments to bar government from taking private property for economic development. Politicians in Alabama, South Dakota and Virginia likewise hope to curtail government's ability to condemn land.


http://www.tbo.com/

 

[Annie]

States Move to Blunt Effect of Supreme Court Eminent-Domain Ruling

By Maura Kelly Lannan Associated Press Writer Published: Jul 19, 2005

CHICAGO (AP) - Alarmed by the prospect of local governments seizing homes and turning the property over to developers, lawmakers in at least half the states are rushing to blunt last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the power of eminent domain.

In Texas and California, legislators have proposed constitutional amendments to bar government from taking private property for economic development. Politicians in Alabama, South Dakota and Virginia likewise hope to curtail government's ability to condemn land.


http://www.tbo.com/

Thanks for reminding me, Chicago Trib had an editorial about this subject:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0507180220jul18,1,1702610.story

Not so fast on eminent domain

Published July 18, 2005

When the Supreme Court ruled last month that governments may take land from a private owner and give it to another private owner, its ruling might have been the end of the matter. Homeowners in New London, Conn., fought the seizure of their homes for economic development, and they lost. Case closed. Evict the owners and bring on the bulldozers.

But things may not work out quite that way. After the ruling came down, hundreds of people rallied on the steps of New London's City Hall in opposition to the decision and the redevelopment plan. Meanwhile, the Republican leader in the state House of Representatives began lining up support for a bill that would ban government condemnation of property for private development.

This is just a small part of the backlash against the court's decision. And the good news is that this is one of those times that, if Americans disagree with what the court sanctioned, they can lobby their legislators to stop it. While Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said the Constitution does not bar this use of eminent domain, he also stressed that "nothing in our opinion precludes any state from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power."

Apparently a lot of lawmakers took those words to heart. Americans are accustomed to the regrettable necessity of condemning homes in order to build highways or railroads--but not to using it for the enrichment of corporate developers or government tax coffers. That threat, it's clear, offends a lot of people across the political spectrum.

The Constitution, after all, allows property to be taken only for "public use." Under this decision, the court made clear, public use means almost any purpose a governmental body thinks appropriate. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor put it in her dissent, the effect of the ruling is "effectively to delete the words `for public use' from the takings clause of the 5th Amendment."

In the U.S. House of Representatives, the critics ranged from House Republican Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who is famous for his conservatism, to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), one of the premier liberal voices in the chamber. The House quickly approved a resolution urging states and cities to "never use eminent domain to advantage one private property over another." It also passed an amendment to a transportation and housing bill forbidding the use of federal funds to take private property for private development.

The reaction to this sweeping threat to property rights also has reached beyond Washington. A House committee in the Texas Legislature unanimously adopted an amendment to the state constitution to bar such transfers. The Institute for Justice, the libertarian public interest law firm that represented the New London homeowners, says legislators in at least 20 states (including Illinois) are pushing bills to restrict the use of eminent domain.

That should open a broad debate on how far the government should be allowed to go in seizing private property. The court has spoken, but on this issue, the people will ultimately rule.