"How Eminent Domain Ran Amuck"


A good place to start for the history of eminent domain abuse
Carla T. Main has a long article at Real Clear Politics on the history of eminent domain in the U.S.

The Kelo decision is testament to the expanding use of police power by the state for the advancement of private interests that are often in cozy relationships with local municipal governments. To follow the path of the takings locomotive that has chugged across this country is to see how the meaning of private property has changed in the United States from its original promise as a place of sanctuary from outside interference to a contingent relationship in which property is private and unmolested only at the sufferance of local government.

Around the nation, there are thousands of ordinary citizens whose lives have been touched — and sometimes destroyed — by takings. For decades, the takings locomotive was fueled by urban renewal policies, now known by the more delicate term “urban revitalization” (and no longer practiced in 1960s-style blunderbuss fashion). But the Kelo case was fueled by a different type of fervor, and one with far greater potential for mischief in the twenty-first century: economic development. The homes of the petitioners in Kelo were marked for eminent domain not because they were blighted, but because they stood in the way of the city’s plan to increase its tax base and jazz up what officials saw as a depressed waterfront in their town.

Citizens who had been the targets of economic development takings projects long in the works before the Kelo decision suddenly found the vocabulary they had lacked to express their anger. The Kelo case, covered in depth by the media, crystallized the often Byzantine nature of condemnation proceedings for the homeowners caught up in them. Armed with a clearer understanding of what had befallen them and an outlet for their outrage, they have been hitting the streets in protest. Even Justice John Paul Stevens, who authored the majority opinion in Kelo, said in a speech before a bar association meeting in August that he personally regretted the Kelo decision but had felt compelled to rule against the homeowners, based on precedent.

What has emerged from the ashes of the Kelo ruling is the rarest of political birds, a Supreme Court Phoenix — a case that lives on in political consciousness. If the Phoenix rises high enough, it may result in state laws and a federal statute that could render the Supreme Court ruling moot.

Great article, and it covers eminent domain from colonial times through the grist mills and railroads up to the modern day.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sat - October 22, 2005 at 04:24 PM  Tag


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