supreme court trashes constitution

supreme court trashes constitution

The US Supreme Court has decided that private property no longer exists; that eminent domain can be used for any reason at all.

Despicable.

I truly despise this decision. These were well-kept homes, not a slum, and they are being demolished to make way for Pfizer. From Justice O'Connor's dissenting opinion:

"Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power," she wrote. "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 -- i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public -- in the process."

The effect of the decision, O'Connor said, "is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property -- and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment."

These houses were not to be destroyed to make way for an expressway or to build a school; they will be destroyed to make way for Pfizer's new research facility:

"The plan called for a waterfront hotel and conference center surrounded by restaurants and stores, marinas for recreational and commercial use, 80 new residences in an urban neighborhood, office space for research and development, parking lots and other retail services."

I have a visceral hatred for governments which steal private property from one group of private citizens to give it to another group of private citizens. This happened to my great-grandfather thirty years ago when the city of Edmonton expanded; he got a take-it-or-leave-it-we-don't-care-the-land-is-ours-now offer from the city of Edmonton, for a sum of approximately 1% of the land's value, cheating my family out of several million dollars. What was his farm (and my inheritance) is now the subdivision of Mill Woods.

The US Supreme Court members who voted in favour of this travesty (John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer) ought to be ashamed of themselves. One wonders if they would have taken the same position had it been their own homes set for demolition.

UPDATE: Arguing With Signposts has more reaction - heaps of it.

UPDATE 2: It occurs to me that the city of New London, Connecticut has shot itself in the foot. Would anyone consider buying a house there now? Why would they risk getting a mortgage with the knowledge that at any moment city council can just take their property according to whim? Why would developers risk millions on a new housing development? The city of New London just killed their housing market.

Technorati Tags: Law, Kelo, Eminent Domain