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Supreme Court Rules Private Property Can be Seized
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Jun 23, 2005 04:06 PM
from the supreme-court-totally-rules dept.
from the supreme-court-totally-rules dept.
slew writes "CNN is reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case where a local community seized private houses for commercial development (not public works) under the guise of eminent domain. Needless to say, the little guy loses to the commercial developer this case...
"
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All your homes are... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All your homes are... (Score:5, Funny)
1. Create new Funny Inside Joke moderation
2. filter out the jokes.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
Parent
pwn3d (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pwn3d (Score:5, Insightful)
-Peter
Parent
Re:pwn3d (Score:5, Insightful)
The principle that has been established is that you own your land unless the government can think of a purpose for your land that would suit what they identify as the higher economic good. That's called expropriation [google.com].
Expropriation is bad, mmmkay?
Parent
Woot!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Aarghhh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Aarghhh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Aarghhh. (Score:5, Insightful)
This point is made by the majority, and nicely refuted by the dissent. The problem is that the people most likely to be hurt by this ruling are the poor and uneducated, who have much less access to and influence over the political process. On the other hand the people who benefit are the rich, who do wield considerable influence. When is the last time eminent domain was used to take away a $1,000,000 home to make way for affordable housing?
To make the point another way, if the electoral process provided a sufficient check over abuse of eminent domain, there would be no need for a Constitutional guarantee against that abuse. The case in point shows the need for a secured right.
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Re:Aarghhh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please surrender your membership card at the door. Thank you.
Parent
Re:Aarghhh. (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, the ruling today has decided that being in the 'public good' is simply a matter of being 'generally kind of better than what was there before, maybe' (although specifically, they find that there is no burden on the developer to ensure that the 'public good' is ever actually realized).
Basically, private property owners like you and me get the shaft when developers decide they can do something more publicly beneificial with our land than we can. Totally nuts.
Parent
Dammit... (Score:5, Insightful)
New way around California's Prop 13: (Score:5, Insightful)
And that creates a new way around California's Proposition 13 (which keeps them from raising property taxes on your house and land until it sells). Watch for this:
1) Emminent domain the tax-capped house.
2) Sell it to another buyer. (Taxes now at new rate.)
3) Previous owner has to buy a different house. (Taxes now at new rate.)
Old owner is now paying the higher tax rate. Old property is now taxed at the higher tax rate.
Public good: Increased tax base.
Supremes say that's OK, it's a state matter.
Oops!
Parent
Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Informative)
They stated that this doesn't nothing to prevent states from legislating limits on eminent domain seizures by municipal government
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Insightful)
Want your state to make laws to prevent this? Show up and vote.
Parent
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Insightful)
You may be thinking a little too small view here.
Parent
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Informative)
From http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050623/D8ATDSD80 .html [myway.com]
O'Connor was joined by
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (conservative)
Antonin Scalia (conservative)
Clarence Thomas (conservative)
O'Connor's dissent was surprisingly terse and (*gasp*) conservative!
From http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23wire- scotus.html?incamp=article_popular_4 [nytimes.com]
In a bitter dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the majority had created an ominous precedent. "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," she wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private property, 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.
"As for the victims," Justice O'Connor went on, "the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."
It pisses me off when people jump to conclusions without hearing all the facts. Next time, please do your homework first. -D
Parent
Oh yes it is (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the court's job, and indeed a grave necessity, for them to rule on matters of constitutionality. Whether or not states set limits on eminent domain, the court must decide if those limits are constitutional.
By taking the position you describe, SCOTUS has nullified the entire concept of "public good." Since anything can now qualify as a public good and pass the constitutional test, it is exactly as if they redacted the words directly from the parchment.
Yes, this means that they effectively repealed a rather important portion of the 5th amendment by fiat.
Private property is now a fiction in the United States. "Property" is now redefined as something that you temporarily occupy under the consent and sufference of your local political majority.
This signals the beginning of a campaign of legal home invasion, as wealthy and politically-connected people will wield the government to transfer the property of others to themselves. Despotism, by any other name.
The end result will be familiar to anyone who'se lived in a radically unjust society: violence.
Parent
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Insightful)
I read most of the opinions of SCOTUS, and the dissent in this case was a great piece of judicial writing, and very, very stinging. The dissent begins:
Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was ratified, Justice Chase wrote: Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. 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.
This is some of the strongest language that I have ever seen in a dissent from O'Connor, and I am sure that it represents one of the widest divergences that this particular court has expressed. I think it will be tremendously interesting to see how this plays out.
My particular concern is that this appears to me to be a sweeping decision that that is being sweetened with the idea of pre-existingh checks and balances that will act as a bulwark against abuses. I simply don't believe this. Given the increasingly corporatist leanings of the executive and legislature, I am very, very sad to see the judiciary handing down this opinion, as I believe now that corporations will be able to force the exercise of eminent domain purely by financial muscle, and with an opinion of this sort from SCOTUS, it's going to be very, VERY difficult for people who want to stand against it.
What price now the Fourth Amendment?
Parent
No, it's worse. (Score:5, Informative)
In this instance, the judges say that local officials know best. (Never mind what the owners of the land think.)
The part that makes this really bad is that the Court isn't looking at the law and the Constitution, but at the circumstances. They're supposed to be judging the law, not making new laws as they did here.
A similar thing happened in the medical marijuana case. The judges said that they thought the "medical" thing was a sham, that this was all about people wanting a way around Federal drug laws. They had no legal basis for that finding, it was just what they thought about the issue. So they allowed the extension of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution to include the doctor-patient relationship.
These decisions are symptomatic of an out of control Court.
Parent
Soviet America (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet America, private property seizes local government.
This is really a sad day.
Bogus! (Score:5, Interesting)
The city government claims they seized the property for economic development, as part of a larger plan. Sure, the property is going to be turned over to a commercial developer, but it's "public use" of the land because of the larger economic development plan.
The state courts: Well, the city says their main reason for doing it is public use, not to benefit Pfizer, so it must be public use!
The supreme courts: We'll let the state courts worry about this. They said it's public use, so it probably is. Therefore, it's OK for the city to seize the land.
This is not the building of new roads, this is not the elimination of blight, this is a real estate development deal, and people are losing their houses over it. Does this frighten anybody but me?
Them Pesky Conser-oh, wait... (Score:5, Informative)
For the record, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas were in the dissent. The minority. The losers. The folks saying "no, the government doesn't have the right to take private land from some citizens on behalf of other private citizens as long as there are a few extra tax dollars to be picked up in the process".
If you want to argue party politics ("It's all Bush's fault, favoring Special Interests"), there are plenty of threads where you can do so and still be on-topic.
Unless you're so blinded by partisan politics that you consider O'Connor, Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas to be liberals (well, at least for today), this isn't one of those threads.
This isn't about Republicans vs. Democrats. It's about libertarians vs. statists.
Yeah, first time I find myself agreeing with (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the world coming to???
WTF were the other 5 bozos thinking??
What does "own" mean now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading the ruling [akamaitech.net], I find the dissents by O'Connor and Thomas much more perusasive. The ruling amounts to saying that, starting today, if others can use your property in a way that will be better for the general public, for example if:
- they will pay more taxes than you do now; or,
- the public will find the house they will build more aesthetically pleasing than yours is; or,
- they bribe the local politicians more than you can afford.
then the government can simply take away your property and give it to them.Of course you have to be "justly compensated". However, all this means is you will get back the "market value" of your property, i.e. what it is worth to a random person on the street. That could be very different from what it is worth to you, or even what it is worth to the developer who will get it and profit from it. Unlike normal economics, where the developers will have to pay based on what they can use the property for, the fair market value will depend on what you are using the property for today. And you personal enjoyment of living in a home you've owned for a long time doesn't factor into that.
Do you think Ms. Dery, who is 87 years old and lives in the house she was born in will be compensated for value of that? She only will be compensated for the value of the house assuming it was sold for profit.
Good for democracy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Strangely enough, this SCOTUS ruling could be a potential boon for local democracy and activism in the United States.
If indeed the ramifications are not "random", as Justice O'Connor put it (and I think she's right), then what we'll see are pitched local battles taking place across the entire nation, with commercial developers vs., well, the people. This may finally be the tipping point that wakes everyone up and sparks a vast new wave of civic activism. After all, the "local authorities" are democratically elected, and if they go off the deep end with seizing private property for pure commercial interests, it won't be long before people get out their pitchforks, so to speak.
Disease (Score:5, Insightful)
Have they considered churches? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. 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 sole argument for the misappropriation of these properties seems to be that the overall tax coffers would benefit. That is, there will be higher property, income, and sales taxes due to the economic development.
Now, I'm as pro-business as you'll find on
Churches would be poster-children here: they provide no tax revenue (property, sales, etc), and generally, they exist in spite of popular opinion: a 80% baptist (or catholic/muslim/jewish/etc) community could very easily decide that the property of a minority religion's church is simply expendable.
This opens doors of corruption, discrimination, and hatred on a scale that simply frightens me.
I hope they designate a church on one of those properties quickly (before the bulldozers get there) so that this goes back up on a (slightly) stronger ammendment claim (the First!).
One final thought: I have yet to find ANYONE who thinks this is a good idea! I've heard people blame it on the "corporate elite" (presumably right-wing), and on the "socialists and statists", but nobody's claiming this as their own! How do we get a majory of justices on the SCOTUS that nobody agrees with??
This is really bad for the elderly (Score:5, Insightful)
A person who buys and works 30 years to pay off their house in anticipation of living on their retirement (Fixed income). Typically these neighborhoods will go down in value as the houses age over the years. The property will probably retain or increase in value.
Perhaps it's lakefront property that you bought 30 years ago when the city did not even incorporate in that area and you were rural. But urban sprawl eventually caused to be in the city's influence.
Now the city is looking for more tax revenue due to their overspending and have limited options for development. Rather than raise the taxes on the whole to make up for this, or the citizens deal with the big spenders through the elective process those council members hear from private developers that you have some land they are interested in. So they begin the process of condeming property to allow the developer to take over.
Now the neighborhood is a bit run down but it's a quality place to live and many living there are fixed income retirees. The city is now telling them to move and a house that normally woudl be worth 200,000 dollars is only being offered 60,000 dollars. These people cannot afford to move because nowhere in the immediate area can you buy a brand new house for 60,000 dollars. In fact that barely would make the 20% payment requirements now due to inflation.
So in essence you're kicking these people on the streets, or they get new houses and work till the day they die and instead of their house going to their kids or grandchildren it gets repossessed and your investement for the enjoyment of your family is gone forever.
The only way it can be fair compensation is if these people are relocated into a paid off house with sufficient tax breaks on the house as to facilitate the ability to live as before with possibly some money on the side to help with the loss of a treasured property. To not offer that at the minimum should be illegal. The developer could afford it, and there's no reason they can just come along and uproot your entire life and financial future just to build something so they can make money.
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Interesting)
And in an ironic twist, David Souter _is_ a Bush-appointed judge - Bush the elder, that is.
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:bush judges (Score:5, Interesting)
-- Ford
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Funny)
Now I need to go take a shower.
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A day that will live in infamy. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the constitution as it was written: Today, five supreme court justices, who are sworn to uphold that constitution, changed it to read: It is very difficult to overemphasize quite how evil this ruling is.
Parent
Re:A day that will live in infamy. (Score:5, Funny)
No no. It is easy to overemphasize how evil this is:
This ruling will result in the destruction of the sun and the solar system as we know it.
Thanks. I will be here all week.
Parent
Re:A day that will live in infamy. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A day that will live in infamy. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is public use! (Score:5, Insightful)
By bulldozing your house, and putting up a Walmart, it is a public use because they can collect sales tax -- see, public use.
Well, at least we can still speak against the government, or at least for today.
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Informative)
Remember how Bush made his money in baseball: building a larger stadium on land siezed under eminent domain? http://espn.go.com/mlb/bush/saturday.html [go.com]
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Informative)
In favor:
John Paul Stevens - Ford/republican
Anthony Kennedy - Reagan/republican
David H. Souter - Bush/republican
Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Clinton/democrat
Stephen G. Breyer - Clinton/democrat
Against:
Sandra Day O'Connor - Reagan/republican
William H. Rehnquist - Nixon-Reagan/ republican
Antonin Scalia - Reagan/republican
Clarence Thomas - Bush/republican
I'd say toss up on whether more bush/republican judges would help here. Both democrats were in favor, but so were three republicans.
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Interesting)
The minority opinion of today's decision is pretty much the group I normally harbor such incredible contempt. And YET, today it is so obvious they were the ones making the correct decision. I am stroking out just trying to grasp this contradiction to my world view.
How do you go to a citizen, a property owner, someone who as poured his sweat and portion of his life into obtaining and maintaining his land, and then tell him he is to be evicted because some rich guy, or some soulless corporation has decided to take his property over???
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Insightful)
The amount they were offered is irrelevant. If they didn't want to sell, the government shouldn't compel it for commercial development. Schools and roads are one thing, strip malls and hotels are another.
In general the government is only supposed to do this stuff . .
When has the government (on any level) stopped at what it's supposed to do? In several of the places I've lived, the local government was effectively an extension of the local real-estate developers. Do you expect them to do the right thing? I sure don't.
. . . ou say the same thing when they had to take a few houses in order to start providing running water for people for the first time?
There's a huge difference between providing public services and building a strip mall.
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Insightful)
The original comment seemed to imply that it's the republicans who are the evil doers in this case, but it's in fact the democrats who think it's okay to give authority to a municipality to bulldoze a home to build a Walmart.
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Insightful)
And now we have two prominent cases in a row where the "bad guys" are the liberal judges (yes, Scalia voted "against" medical marijuana, but they would have won without his vote, too). Liberal/Conservative is a different thing in the SCOTUS chambers than it is in the halls of Congress.
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Insightful)
Just goes to show you that the sides aren't so clearly defined. We need to oppose dangerous ideas, not the liberals or the conservatives.
Parent
Pardon, BUT... (Score:5, Insightful)
In that sense, these "liberal" judges were being extremely CONSERVATIVE. The so-called "conservatives" were wanting to run rough-shod over the constitution to leap-frog the federal government straight over the state into an issue appropriately handled by local government. THAT would be a "liberal" action in the usual pejorative sense of the term.
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Re:bush judges (Score:5, Insightful)
Or one moderate judge. Or a liberal judge that hasn't lost his mind.
We don't need a "conservative" court. We just need a court with good balance and jurists who think deeply.
Parent
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Insightful)
Decisions like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade that make significant changes in how the Constitution is interpreted are fairly rare. Right now, there are two appellate decisions on the Second Amendment that stand in almost direct contradiction to each other, with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the right to bear arms is an individual right, while the Ninth Circuit ruled that there is no individual right. When the opportunity came up to decide the issue, the Supreme Court declined because, I suspect, they were not willing to dive into those admittedly troublesome waters.
They're also very pedantic. Several recent decisions were turned away or dismissed entirely because the person making the challenge did not hold proper standing. They insist that proper procedures and protocol are followed to the letter, and have little patience for those who do otherwise.
Parent