Supreme Court Rules Private Property Can be Seized

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... "

All your homes are...

All your homes are belong to us.

pwn3d

So what the supreme court ruled was that you own your land, but the wealthy business pwns j00

Re:pwn3d

Let's lay the blame where it belongs. Sure the businesses are acting in self interest, but it's the government acting like thugs.

-Peter

Re:pwn3d

It's not the wealth of the business that makes them effective, it's their contacts with the local city government. If they convince the city government that some piece of development is in the city's best interests, they're in. It doesn't take money to do this, it just takes connections.

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?

Woot!!!

Now I can finally plow down my two neighbors houses and install my cluster!!!!

Aarghhh.

This runs so counter to the concept of using eminent domain for the public good that I could scream. I guess there's not much chance Congress would consider limiting eminent domain to the more 'traditional' uses like roads, schools, etc. Sigh.

Re:Aarghhh.

Why should Congress limit eminent domain if we can vote for the people who exercise it? The way I see it, if these town council folks don't get booted out in the next election, that's a referendum on their use of state power.

Dammit...

Increasing the tax base is now a reason to seize someone's property. Nice.

New way around California's Prop 13:

Increasing the tax base is now a reason to seize someone's property.

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!

Not as bad as it sounds...

it was a 5-4 decision, which the conclusion being that the supreme court doesn't feel it's their job the decide what falls within the "public good" clause of eminent domain.

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...

Thank you for seeing through the knee-jerk reaction. Basically they said what the Conservatives would normally say, the states have the power. Rather than limit the rights of the states this ruling gives them more power. What they do with it is not for the federal government to decide.

Want your state to make laws to prevent this? Show up and vote.

Re:Not as bad as it sounds...

I've been showing up to vote for awhile now. It doesn't seem to stop the all out freefall of this country. Next suggestion?

Re:Not as bad as it sounds...

Same here. WTF are we coming to? Guess it's time to use the 2nd Amendment Citizen Veto - Some rich fucker kicks me out of my house, there's going to be blood spilled. Sorry, my get-along limits stop there.

Soviet America

It sounds almost as though we can start making Soviet America jokes now instead.

In Soviet America, private property seizes local government.

This is really a sad day.

Bogus!

I've posted other comments here [blogspot.com] about this, but here's the basic review:

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...

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat:

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

Thomas and Scalia in a disenting opinion.

What's the world coming to???

WTF were the other 5 bozos thinking??

What does "own" mean now?

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:

1. they will pay more taxes than you do now; or,
2. the public will find the house they will build more aesthetically pleasing than yours is; or,
3. 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.

Re:bush judges

Funny enough, the dissenting judges appear to mostly be conservative in nature from what I've read of their rulings.

And in an ironic twist, David Souter _is_ a Bush-appointed judge - Bush the elder, that is.

A day that will live in infamy.

This is the constitution as it was written:

nor shall private property be taken for PUBLIC use, without just compensation [constitution.org]

Today, five supreme court justices, who are sworn to uphold that constitution, changed it to read:

nor shall private property be taken for PUBLIC OR PRIVATE use, without just compensation

It is very difficult to overemphasize quite how evil this ruling is.

Re:bush judges

For more of the same?

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]

Re:bush judges

Let's see:

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.

Re:bush judges

Un-freaking-believable.

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???

Re:bush judges

Thanks so much for pointing this out. When I first saw this comment, I went down each of the judges and checked their affiliation. The two democrats voted for this decision. Three other republicans voted for it and four other republicans voted against it.

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.

Re:bush judges

It's not really useful to separate the judges by who appointed them, in most cases. What's more useful is looking at their voting history, which makes Souter a liberal on the court, regardless of the fact that he was nominated by Bush I.

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.