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shawnmmcc
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That's just obscene.
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DerSchwarzfalke
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I am officially renouncing all ties with the state of Connecticut.
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mrmitchell
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What did New London want the land for anyway?
This sounds like it's getting ridiculous.
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shawnmmcc
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I've disliked the abuse (IMHO) of eminent domain since I discovered that they could use it for commercial purposes, and have been opposed to that for over two decades. It's just this is utterly shameless, I hope as I believe it was Imran pointed out that this makes people pay more attention to their local elected officials. In fact this very issue was critical in the election of our County Judge-Advocate (essentially county mayor) in the last election - not eminent domain, but massive abuse of zoning to favor developers, a related but different issue.
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mrmitchell
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It's different when it's for a highway or a base. But strip malls can find their own land.
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SpencerH
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Co-Ruler of my patch of land south of Birmingham Alabama
Feb 2002
time: 23:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Um.. Spencer? Did you read the dissent? If it was a strip mall with many different private interests only Thomas would have voted against. It would have been 8-1 in favor of the condemnation. |
Um, yes I did.
Here's the opening para'a from O'Connors dissent.
quote:
Justice O’Connor, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was ratified, Justice Chase wrote:
“An act of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority … . A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean… . [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).
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. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” 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. Accordingly I respectfully dissent. |
last 3
quote:
It was possible after Berman and Midkiff to imagine unconstitutional transfers from A to B. Those decisions endorsed government intervention when private property use had veered to such an extreme that the public was suffering as a consequence. Today nearly all real property is susceptible to condemnation on the Court’s theory. In the prescient words of a dissenter from the infamous decision in Poletown, “[n]ow that we have authorized local legislative bodies to decide that a different commercial or industrial use of property will produce greater public benefits than its present use, no homeowner’s, merchant’s or manufacturer’s property, however productive or valuable to its owner, is immune from condemnation for the benefit of other private interests that will put it to a ‘higher’ use.” 410 Mich., at 644—645, 304 N. W. 2d, at 464 (opinion of Fitzgerald, J.). This is why economic development takings “seriously jeopardiz[e] the security of all private property ownership.” Id., at 645, 304 N. W. 2d, at 465 (Ryan, J., dissenting).
Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. 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, 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. “[T]hat alone is a just government,” wrote James Madison, “which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.” For the National Gazette, Property, (Mar. 29, 1792), reprinted in 14 Papers of James Madison 266 (R. Rutland et al. eds. 1983).
I would hold that the takings in both Parcel 3 and Parcel 4A are unconstitutional, reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and remand for further proceedings. |
Reading that, I wonder if you read the dissent? There are reasons why these three would have upheld the property transfer but I doubt that a strip mall would have been reason enough.
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shawnmmcc
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As well as property taxes, routinely appointment of the head of local police force (if you don't think that appointment influences the entire behavior of the force and who gets hired and their attitude, you are nuts), appointments to the zoning commision - IMHO truly critical, and often appointments to the local prosecutorial office (who can destroy your life in a heartbeat). Add in the the Superintendant of Schools, contracting out local road work (whose street get's fixed and how well it's done), and relationships with the state party and state government. It is all very important.
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Imran Siddiqui
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The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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Um.. Spencer?
quote:
Second, the sovereign may transfer private property to private parties, often common carriers, who make the property available for the public’s use–such as with a railroad, a public utility, or a stadium. See, e.g., National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U.S. 407 (1992) |
A strip mall, or other open businesses, are obviously making the property available for the public's use, as much as any stadium or railway station.
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SpencerH
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Co-Ruler of my patch of land south of Birmingham Alabama
Feb 2002
time: 23:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Um.. Spencer?
quote:
Second, the sovereign may transfer private property to private parties, often common carriers, who make the property available for the public’s use–such as with a railroad, a public utility, or a stadium. See, e.g., National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U.S. 407 (1992) |
A strip mall, or other open businesses, are obviously making the property available for the public's use, as much as any stadium or railway station. |
Um... Imran?
Not at all. That's the opinion taken by the majority.
The dissent makes it clear that they dont consider tearing down perfectly good houses in a nice neighborhood in order to build anything else a valid reason to transfer ownership.
quote:
The Court’s holdings in Berman and Midkiff were true to the principle underlying the Public Use Clause. In both those cases, the extraordinary, precondemnation use of the targeted property inflicted affirmative harm on society–in Berman through blight resulting from extreme poverty and in Midkiff through oligopoly resulting from extreme wealth. And in both cases, the relevant legislative body had found that eliminating the existing property use was necessary to remedy the harm. Berman, supra, at 28—29; Midkiff, supra, at 232. Thus a public purpose was realized when the harmful use was eliminated. Because each taking directly achieved a public benefit, it did not matter that the property was turned over to private use. Here, in contrast, New London does not claim that Susette Kelo’s and Wilhelmina Dery’s well-maintained homes are the source of any social harm. Indeed, it could not so claim without adopting the absurd argument that any single-family home that might be razed to make way for an apartment building, or any church that might be replaced with a retail store, or any small business that might be more lucrative if it were instead part of a national franchise, is inherently harmful to society and thus within the government’s power to condemn. |
I may as well post a link to entire dissent .
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Vesayen
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quote:
Originally posted by Dis
makes you want to overthrow the goverment (both federal and local) |
More so then before, yes.
To your tents, oh Israel.
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16-08-2005 21:33
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