I read with dismay about a recent ruling by the Supreme Court regarding the use of eminent domain for private property.
What is Eminent Domain?
[T]he power of a government to take private property for public use; the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution and articles in many state constitutions allow this practice provided that just compensation is made.
In the recent ruling, however, the SCOTUS allowed for the seizure of private property for the use by another private party. In other words, the state can seize your property in order to give it to another person. Sound scary? It sure does to me.
Reading from a Reuters article, we find:
By a 5-4 vote, the high court upheld as constitutional the taking by New London, Connecticut of 15 properties belonging to nine residents or investment owners for a project to complement a nearby research facility by the Pfizer Inc. drug company.
Justice John Paul Stevens said for the court majority that the city’s development plan served a "public purpose."
The residents opposed the plans to raze their homes and businesses to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices. They argued that it amounted to an unconstitutional taking of their property, located on a peninsula that juts into the Thames River.
Stevens upheld the city’s plan under the U.S. Constitution, which allows the government to take private property through its so-called eminent domain powers in exchange for just compensation.
Stevens said the city had carefully formulated the economic development plan and had sought to coordinate a variety of commercial, residential and recreational uses of land.
He said the city’s determination that the area was sufficiently distressed to justify a program of economic rejuvenation was entitled to deference. The court should not second-guess the city’s judgments, Stevens said.
Thankfully not all of the justices are that heavy-handed:
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. They warned of the harmful consequences from the ruling.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O’Connor wrote.
"The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms," she said.
Thomas agreed in a separate dissent and said the impact will be greatest in the poor communities.
"So-called ‘urban renewal’ programs provide some compensation for the properties they take, but no compensation is possible for the subjective value of these lands to the individuals displaced and the indignity inflicted by uprooting them from their homes," he said.