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Yay. Win for the developers out and there and a reduction of personal property rights. That's just ing grand. The court really ed this one up.
So, what was that about the US being the freest country in the world?
Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes
By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 23, 2005; 11:43 AM
WASHINGTON -- A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.
The 5-4 ruling _ assailed by dissenting Justice Sanday Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America _ was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
Writing for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens said local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community. States are within their rights to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened, he said.
"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including _ but by no means limited to _ new jobs and increased tax revenue," Stevens wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
"It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area," he said.
O'Connor, who has often been a key swing vote at the court, issued a stinging dissent, arguing that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
Connecticut residents involved in the lawsuit expressed dismay and pledged to keep fighting.
"It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would refuse to leave his home, even if bulldozers showed up. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."
Scott Bullock, an attorney for the Ins ute for Justice representing the families, added: "A narrow majority of the court simply got the law wrong today and our Cons ution and country will suffer as a result."
At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.
"We're pleased," attorney Edward O'Connell, who represents New London Development Corporation, said in response to the ruling.
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
O'Connor was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Ins ute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.
The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.
City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
Under the ruling, residents still will be en led to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case was one of six resolved by justices on Thursday. Still pending at the high court are cases dealing with the cons utionality of government Ten Commandments displays and the liability of Internet file-sharing services for clients' illegal swapping of copyrighted songs and movies. The Supreme Court next meets on Monday.
Yay. Win for the developers out and there and a reduction of personal property rights. That's just ing grand. The court really ed this one up.
So, what was that about the US being the freest country in the world?
This blows monkey balls. Sort of like Rick Perry taking hundreds of thousands of acres from landowners to build his superhighway to nowhere.
eminent domain has always meant they can level your house and sell it to a more profitable private business, as long as they label your "blighted" which can mean anything
the developers!
bull . It's meant it can be seized by the city for projects that are public in nature such as highways, but not for private ventures. This is a whole new thing we've come into, and it reaks of .
well the new interpretation of eminent domain
and thats just from a dateline i saw a couple years ago
www.ij.org
actually a few years ago a city did this for wal-mart... i think it is bull too... just like the city of san antonio taking people's land/houses away for that new college campus on the southside
Amazing that 5 out 9 justices support this decision, when I'm willing to bet not 1 in 10 everywhere else would.
, I'll even bet me and NBADan are on the same page on this issue.
Actually, he's right. They have always been able to sponsor urban renewal by using the "blighted" notation, taking (and compensating for) the land, and turning it over to private hands for renovation. The "whole new thing" is taking land that is not "blighted", but that could be used for a more economically beneficial commerical enterprise - regardless of the current condition of the land. The test case was, what, shorefront houses that were EDed for an office building that would bring "more tax revenues and jobs". Essentially, they can ED just about anything now.
Yep. All the Liberals...including Reagan's gone-soft appointee, Kennedy.
I doubt it, he's in love with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and she voted yea.
All the conservative justices voted no and O'Connor blasted her Liberal counterparts.
Eminent Domain was only supposed to apply to projects that were for the PUBLIC good. Somewhere along the way, the tax and spend liberals decided that a megaplex that generated more in sales and property tax than a bunch of homes was an eminent domain issue.
Use to, it meant they could only take your home to build roads, sewer plants, etc...
Way to go Socialis...er, Progressiv....I mean, Liberals!
Conservatives with money interests in development have never tried to make that happen, have they Yoni?
Every conservative on the court was opposed. And, so was I.
What does that tell you?
That tells me that you and every conservative on the court was opposed. If you don't think that people who classify themselves as conservatives are a main driving force in the development in situations such as the case that came to court you are being dillusional.
I do feel the arguement they use of being better for the community has shallow liberal appeal, but thats about it.
You always feel a need to place the blame on one group but thats far from the case. But, I won't deprive you from thinking that conservatives do no wrong and that liberals are the cause of everything negative.
Manny read this real slow and you may understand why the Libs like this
decision: T A X E S=big government=more spending on the masses. They
could care less (the Libs) how they accomplish the goals, just so long as
they do. The Libs don't hate big business (er-ah --- Ted Turner). Or
big developers, just those that oppose them.....look who has all the money
in Congress on the Dim-o-crap side......
Oh, but I am sure you reall deep down in your heart don't mind the
decision either, what the it is only another freedom lost thru
the "living" cons ution. Like their little decision based on "other countries
laws".
LIBS? like big spending and big gov, are you sure about that
recently
since 2000?
is that true
This is one of those items that pop up from time to time where democrats and republicans just wink at one another.
all y'all.
guru thats where "neo" comes in
a total opposite of core republican values, fiscal conservation, limited government
the other ones just turn their head, which is even worse
You're right. Conservatives never have their hands in big business or development. You're so full of . We've had the largest increse in governemtn spending in quite sometime under a republican president yet you still want to view things through you're ed up so called conservative prism.
You can post all you want about assumptions and what I feel deep down that has no basis in actions but one look at what is actually happens in our so called free world is enough to realize what is actualy going on.
In other words, you.
Not where it counts, Manny. On the freakin' Supreme Court! Sorry, the "Conservatives-do-it-too" argument won't work in this area. There are only nine of them and they voted on ideological lines. Conservatives against giving government power over the individual and liberals for taking away individual liberty and giving it to government. It's that black and white; that absolute; that simple. Don't try to obfuscate the issue with your idiocy.
You're right, Yoni. The driving force behind development definetly has NOTHING to do with this ruling. Nothing!
This is a messed up ruling. If the area is actually "blighted" that is one thing, and if the area enters the public domain that is another thing, but to demolish a good neighborhood and give it to private business, that does not pass the smell test.
MannyIsGod said "In other words, you" you haven't got the balls or pecker to
handle the job my boy and not only that you are just not my type.
But getting back to the point. Just because some in Congress call themselves
conservatives don't make it so. Both parties have spent enough money on junk to
make anyone's head spin. I will concede one point to you, the development crowd
will make a lot of money off this decision (as we have lost one of our basic, guiding
principles: personal ownership) but the Libs have once again proven that "big
government" is their God. George Will said it better than I ever could: "Liberalism triumphed yesterday. Government became radically unlimited in seizing the very kinds of private property that should guarantee individuals a sphere of autonomy against government.
Conservatives should be reminded to be careful what they wish for. Their often-reflexive rhetoric praises "judicial restraint" and deference to — it sometimes seems — almost unleashable powers of the elected branches of governments. However, in the debate about the proper role of the judiciary in American democracy, conservatives who dogmatically preach a populist creed of deference to majoritarianism will thereby abandon, or at least radically restrict, the judiciary's indispensable role in limiting government"
My own thoughts are that government has stuck their nose into everyday life for
way too long. They continue to take away basic freedoms, mostly of choice. They
are small things to most, but to me and others, they take away as I said: your/my
choices. Like wearing seat belts, having car insurance, air bags, what kind of car
you drive (yes they do tell you what kind of car you drive), where you can pray,
who you can hire as an employer, even taken to the very extreme, give a compliment to someone in the workplace (because if might be used against you in a court of
law). Government has made water a scarce item thru their efforts here in San
Antonio. Oh, I could ramble on and on. But I will leave it at that for now. But remember one thing Manny, if you do screw me I expect to be kissed (by your girl
friend, not you.....LOL.
this is government imposed socialism
So, absolutely nobody here likes this decision, except maybe Dan. He's oddly quite.
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