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Thursday, June 23, 2005
Ultimate Domain
The concept of private property has just been demolished in the United States.
The Supreme Court ruled today in the Kelo case, involving residents of a New London, Conn. community who were trying to protect their homes from being expropriated and razed by city officials who wanted to build an office park in their place to raise more tax revenue.
At issue was the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which allows the government to take private property through eminent domain only when it is for "public use" and when "just compensation" is provided. Typically that has been interpreted to be used to expropriate property when a new highway needs to be built or something like that. Today, the Supreme Court ruled that that definition should be expanded to include more lucrative developments. In other words, the folks in New London had better start packing up.
Never before has the power been granted to allow the prospect of more tax revenue to constitute "public use." Though similar schemes have been tried (New Jersey once unsuccessfully tried to condemn the home of Vera Coking, a neighbour of Donald Trump's Casino to make room for patron parking).
Of course raising taxes is in no way in the public interest. I consider it to be quite the opposite, in fact. As Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice noted not long ago, if that is allowed to become the new measure for public use:
“Every home, church, or corner store would produce more jobs and tax revenue if it were a Costco or a shopping mall . . . If state and local governments can force a property owner to surrender his land so it can be given to a new owner who will put it to more lucrative use, no home or shop in America will ever be safe again.
Sound like just a hotheaded lobbyist? Well, Justice Sandra Day O' Conner who dissented (WSJ subscription only) from the judgement (along with Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas), sounded a similar note:
"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."
Somehow it doesn't make me feel better to know we're not the only country with activist courts.
Posted by Kevin Libin on June 23, 2005 | Permalink
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» The Kelo Decision from Angry in the Great White North
South of the border, American bloggers are rightly up in arms over the Kelo decision. Here in Canada, we're saddled with the Authorson ruling. [Read More]
Tracked on 2005-06-23 2:06:19 PM
Comments
Re-zoning and property taxes have always been the way to get property in Ontario.
How is farming ever going to remain a viable industry if a housing development is worth more then arable land? We will eventually need to get our priorities straight or we are going to end up starving ourselves so we can live in parking lot communities (aka suburbs).
Posted by: Gamblog | 2005-06-23 2:18:09 PM
Eh, don't knock the suburbs. Who are we to deny anyone who can afford it a home with a shaded yard and a patio on a quiet street. I grew up in the suburbs and it was nice. We played road hockey and one kid on our block even had a pool.
If I have kids I will want them to have something like that. I won't want to raise them where I live now, at the corner of Chic Restaurants St. and Hot Night Clubs St. West, right around the corner from the needle exchange clinic and the half-way house for crack-addicted schizophrenics. (Although, it's a fun place to be right now.)
Posted by: MustControlFistOfDeath | 2005-06-23 3:02:15 PM
This is how crazy this society is getting. It remembers me of King Achab in the Old Testament who wanted the piece of land of a poor guy. Jezabel had him killed in order to do that.
Now, can it happen in Canada? The main point is the rotten judiciary. Just like the case of Terry Schiavo killed by a judge.
When are we going to do something about the judiciary?
Posted by: rémi houle | 2005-06-23 3:26:47 PM
"We will eventually need to get our priorities straight or we are going to end up starving ourselves so we can live in parking lot communities (aka suburbs)."
Political Commissar 3rd Class Gamblog to greedy bourgeois capitalists seeking to buy a home on the outskirts of their city with their own money: PERMISSION DENIED.
You will live in a concrete apartment block and farm cabbages with a hoe on the communal patch to which you are assigned.
Ignore the rumours that shelves in grocery stores in decadent western countries are groaning with mountains of abundant, fresh, tasty produce and meat from all over the world, offered at low prices. It is a lie told to you by reactionary counter-revolutionary property speculators who deny the obvious truth that the only possible place to produce food is within 20km of the place where it is consumed.
Furthermore, because petroleum is subsidized so heavily by the government it is out of the question that we would allow you to use up this precious resource for anything as frivolous as driving to work.
You will now return to your residential block, turn on the People's Broadcasting System and await further orders.
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2005-06-23 8:42:33 PM
I thought you guys supported farmers. How can you support urban sprawl and farmers being driven off their land with high property taxes?
Posted by: Gamblog | 2005-06-24 9:30:46 AM
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