The Supreme Court has lost its mind

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The Supreme Court has decided that cities may sieze peoples homes if the city has decided the property should be used for something else. In this case the city is taking the homes in order to build hotels and office buildings in a hope to increase tax revenue.

Yahoo

Now before everyone starts going crazy and blaming Bush or the "Neo-Con" agenda. The decision was 5-4 and the five was made up of three "Cons" and two "Libs"

Hopefully, this can cause a sufficent outrage by the people that Congress and the President can pass a law overturning this nonsense. Too bad it will not have the staying power of "Terri Schiavo"

[ June 23, 2005, 17:43: Message edited by: The Great Snook ]

 

@TGS: AFAIK, Congress and the President do not have the power to overturn a Supreme Court ruling. In fact, it's the other way around - the SC serving to overturn laws that the legislature passes. The only way Congress can do anything about this is if they pass a law stating that such properties cannot be seized, in which case the SC would have to change it's ruling. But there's no way way the pres or Congress can simply "overturn" an SC decision.

 

In my haste I worded that badly. I agree. They should pass a law that more clearly states when property may be seized by eminent domain and for what purposes. I believe in the current situation the court is ruling on something without the benefit of a law.

 

The term, "just compensation" frightens me.

 

"Just compensation" is set by arbitration and is also called "fair market value". In other words, they have to pay you what you would be able to sell that property for. What it fails to account for is that the property instantly becomes more valuable when they build hotels and office buildings. So yeah, the people who lose their homes get screwed twice - once by losing the home, and then again in not getting anywhere near the value of the property once the new development comes in.

 

Snook, there is nothing about any of those three judges that can be considered conservative. They might have been nominated by Republican presidents, but they have turned out to be big time libs. All five of these judges need to be removed from the court. Dems everywhere probably had orgasms at the thought of what they can do with our property now. This must be stopped now! Like Jefferson said, "a little revolution now and then is a good thing."

 

I disagree. The Supreme Court basically said the decision for eminent domain is best decided locally and NOT on the Federal level. Eminent domain is something that has to be proven in local courts already -- the SC just made the statement that it is not a Federal issue (which I think is a correct move).

Corrupt officials (i.e., elected officials) could take away homes, but not many are willing to be branded a homewrecker. Plus, there are already many legal requirements for eminent domain. It has come up here in my town several times, usually from the property owner being excessively greedy ('if you want to use my land, then you'll need to pay ten times what it's worth'). Usually eminent domain is used after several attempts at arbitration have failed.

 

The use of eminent domain to aquire land to build a school or a jail is one thing. What these people are doing is taking land (stealing actually) to give to someone else to build a Walmart or put up a BMW dealership.

 

I'm inclined to agree with khazadman here. Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas are considered to be the three most conservative justices, and all three voted agaist it. O'Connor is more of a moderate, and wrote the dissenting opinion.

Of the five voting in favor of it - Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer - at least four of them have to be considered among the liberal judges.

When I first saw the article I though to myself - this was definitely a 5-4 decision - and it turns out that was the only thing I was right about. I was absolutely shocked to see that Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas all dissented. (Well, I'm not surprised that Thomas voted with Rehnquist - he always does - but surprised that Rehnquist dissented along with Scalia.) Surprisingly O'Connor is not of the majority opinion. She almost always votes with the majority, because it is often her vote that determines the outcome of the case, with the other 8 voting (typically) right along party lines and ending up 4-4.

 

I guess there is no such thing as private property anymore. I'm glad I live in the middle of a rather large development - they'd have to condemn A LOT of properties before getting to mine.

There's no possible way the community can benefit from the proposed development as much as the developers will, and to evict someone from their home for the sake of another individual (in this case, a private corporation) is just plain wrong.

 

Note that the suit didn't dispute other examples of eminent domain (all quotes from here.

The "revitalization of blighted areas," or slum clearing, still takes place all time, and also, as you might notice, contains alot of wiggle room in terms of defining "blight." So from the very beginning, we know that property rights are not in the least absolute in this country.

As for the majority opinion:

Essentially, the argument seems to be that the court is unwilling to harden the current definition of property rights, and would rather these things be worked out at the state and local level. A number of these issues already are worked out this way. IIRC, different states, municipalities, etc have different definitions of what it means to own land; i.e, if you buy a piece of land, how deep into the earth does the property extend, and how high above the ground. Would an expanded Bill of the Rights of Property have to address and define all of these issues? And if so, is there a possibility this kind of heavy, centralized legislation might be too unwieldy for many local conditions? AFAIK, the federal language is purposely vague as to what rights adhere to property, and what exactly "just compensation" entails...

Then again, for the dissent:

Sadly, very true.

 

This is a little chilling to me:

From Seizing Property Excerpts , this was part of Steven’s opinion. Since when does case law trump the Constitution?

From the same article, I found the excerpts from both Thomas' and O'Connor's dissents to be absolute jems. I cannot think of the last time I saw something that so eloquently and succinctly stated.

O'Connor hit the nail on the head when she quoted Madison:

khazadman has the right of it here. Most people don't want to be right next door to most public works (prisons, hospitals, schools, fire stations, police stations, sewage treatment, water treatment, power plants, etc.), and if they are in the vicinity of where one is going, the often hope they will be bought out. In these cases the property value is likely to crater anyway.

However, many people buy property on the outskirts of a town with the plan that they will live on it until the town grows out to it, and then they will be able to sell it for a profit. They have invested risk (the town may never have moved that way and they would be stuck with land that never greatly appreciates, or even grows in the opposite direction, resulting in a loss of value), and they have paid in inconvenience of having to travel to town for supplies, medical care, entertainment, and possibly even their employment, and now the Gov't can just come in and take that property at a value far below what the true market value (the market value being defined as the intersection of what the seller is willing to accept for the property and the buyer is willing to pay) all because some business promises the Gov't more tax revenue?

I am sorry T2, but your idea that corrupt officials will pay the price in the next election doesn't hold true in these cases. The officials simply roll out numbers of new jobs, and the new schools and roads that were paid for by the increase in taxes, and the majority forgives them. This is exactly the type of scenario that James Bovard was indicating when he said "Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

I have a whole stack of quotes that apply to this type of abuse:

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. --George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay with your money. --G. Gordon Liddy

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as
possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. --Voltaire (1764)

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. --Ronald Reagan

The rights of individuals are being slowly eroded away, and at the bottom of this slippery slope lay many nightmares I don't even want to contemplate.

 

If they wanted to leave the decision in state and local hands, why didn't they just refuse to hear the case in the first place? It seems to me that their very actions have hardened property rights to some extent, simply not in a direction that favors individuals.

 

I think you just answered your own question.

 

Please refain from turning this debate into a liberal/conservative bashing as some - with obviously their own personal agendas - are attempting to make this. So I will suggest strongly that those with such agendas stick to the topic, and not use this as a forum for their dislike for opposing ideologies. If anyone wishes to discuss opposing ideologies feel free (and have the courage) to start a separate thread and not snipe at others from behind this topic. 'nuff said.

 

Confiscations as a last resort are quite normal here (certainly not on a daily basis) where we have open cast coalmining that consumes lots of land. So it isn't something so remarkable to me.
What I loathe about it, is the utter devastation coalmining wreaks on the local societies there, not to mention the effect on the environment. The economic motivation for it is utterly obvious.

German constitutional law guarantees property. However, in Germany seizure of land is possible, but strictly linked to the necessity of a compensation. If a law allowing for seizure is made, it must guarantee compensation - otherwise it's unconstitutional.
And it would have to be a law made in parliament, a mere city council wouldn't do.

The reasoning behind it is that property in itself has the purpose to enable personal freedom. Property ensures freedom of action. Property and property rights, however, are not an end in itself but a means to an end, just like market liberalism isn't an end in itself but a means to an end - to achieve personal freedom.

I often get the impression that the people championing property and market liberalism are losing this out of sight, if they ever got it at all.

The idea is that a greater good can justify such a confiscation. I second that, there is no point in allowing some whacked out grouser enjoying himself as the persistent obstacle at the expense of the people living around him: Trespassing rights come to my mind.

But it can be the other way around, too. That a greater good is indeed a greater good, isn't guaranteed. So a critical and suspicious eye is crucial.

[ June 25, 2005, 21:05: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

So basically, how many jobs will be created by any given seizure will have to be addressed. 25 stores in a shopping amll will probably result in about 200 jobs, so requiring about 20 households to uproot could be a benefit in the long run--especially if the properties aren't properly maintained in the beginning...

 

While I believe that eventually a government has to make a decision that will not be popular with everyone regarding the placement of things like roads, schools, water treatment facilities, energy stations, etc, the idea they would do this just "to make better, more profitable use of the land" is horrid. Why should I have to move so that Wal-Mart can build a new box store? If this ruling pushes things in that direction, I'd hate to be a landowner in one of these places.

 

Oh please, please let this really happen.

 

Oh my. This is the kind of thing we really really need.

EDIT: The above quote. Not the other thing.