Eminent Domain

As you already know, five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Justice David Souter, decided June 23, 2005 in "Kelo vs. City of New London” (04-108) 268 Conn. 1, 843 A. 2d 500, affirmed, that "eminent domain" allows any local government to take anyone's private property if in doing so the government will generate greater tax revenue, or any other economic benefits, when the land is re-developed by the new owner of the misapproptiated property.

On October 27, 2005 the House Judiciary Committee approved legislation responding to the Kelo ruling. H.R. 3135, the "Private Property Rights Protection Act" was approved 27-3, and prohibits the use of federal funds by state and local governments that use eminent domain for the purposes of commercial development. House Judiciary Chairman Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) was the bill's sponsor.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has introduced similar legislation in the Senate (S 1313, "The Protection of Homes, Small Businesses, and Private Property Act").

House Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) also held a parallel hearing on HR 3405, the "Strengthening the Ownership of Private Property" (STOPP) Act.

Either of these bills would be good, but the best news is that the two bills have now been merged into H.R. 4128, the "Private Property Rights Protection Act." Prior to the merge, both bills had strong bipartisan support -- H.R. 3135 with 136 cosponsors and H.R. 3405 with 112.

Rep. Sensenbrenner's bill reads, "No State or political subdivision of a State shall exercise its power of eminent domain, or allow the exercise of such power by any person or entity to which such power has been delegated, over property to be used for economic development or over property that is subsequently used for economic development, if that State or political subdivision receives Federal economic development funds during any fiscal year in which it does so." In other words, if they take away your property, the Feds will take away their funding.

Unfortunately this doesn’t stop the pillaging and ravaging of the local countryside by greedy individuals elected to local governments, because eminent domain is strictly a state and local issue. This is why state legislatures need to act decisively on the issue of eminent domain. The greatest activity in Arizona has been in Mesa, where several municipal raids on private property owners were fortunately repelled by judges in the court system. The important point is that most state legislatures have not acted to protect private property from seizure by eminent domain, shamefully including Arizona.

Why is all this important? Local governments have already started taking advantage of the Supreme Court decision, in order to gorge their own pockets at the expense of citizens. A perfect example is the beachfront town of Freeport, Texas which has announced they intend to move forward with their plans to commandeer property owned by two seafood companies in order to allow the construction of a 900-slip private marina. Sadly, there are numerous other examples, coast to coast.

Few people appear to understand that what the Supreme Court has just implemented in America is textbook Fascism which hopefully you read about in Economics 101. Fascism is nothing less than state control over both the individual and the economy using regimentation and regulation, the system popularized by World War II Italy under the rule of Mussolini. Fascism prefers state control over ostensibly private property rather than nationalization, i.e., state control of your property without actually seizing the property in the name of the government. It appears that many local governments have readily embraced Fascism, an extreme socialist ideology. Clearly, Fascism is the state of mind in Mesa, Arizona’s city government.

It would be wise to contact your elected representatives, both in support of H.R. 4128 and encouragement to move forward at the Arizona State Legislature. You never know if the next Fascist is hiding in your city government.

Posted November 2, 2005 07:00 PM
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