Gah – not to single you out, but this is so frustrating…the courts explicitly didn’t exercise any power, the other branches of government did. As is appropriate for the judiciary. It was another branch (legislature? executive? I’m not sure who gets to take credit for this wonder of abuse) that was exercising its power. The righteous anger that many of us feel about this is misdirected at the judiciary…it was the elected officials making the original determination to seize the property who should be keelhauled.
I don’t think there is anything in the decision that would prohibit it. Which makes me sick and is why the various legislatures need to enact appropriate law to limit themselves.
I disagree. Unless and until the Court decides to overturn Marbury v Madison, they have accepted a responsibility for preventing the rest of the government from acting un-Constitutionally. Accepting blame when they fail to do so is part and parcel of that.
I’m curious why you think this exercise is wrong. If the Supreme Court justice argued for this ruling, and it passed, and is being applied correctly in this case, why is it wrong? He’s just reaping what he sowed, isn’t he?
Having read the various responses here, I can say that this sounds like a seriously scary thing. How anyone could think it is ok to have the government be able to come in, take someone’s property, and simply give them “fair market value” for it without having to provide some sort of justification as to how this will be better for the people is scary. Not that I’m accusing anyone here of necessarily thinking that, just speaking in general terms. But surely there must need to be some sort of protection mechanism for the people, in order to prevent an unscrupulous politician from rewarding friends and campaign donors and such with choice cuts of land while booting people off it. Surely it seems reasonable that the government should have to provide some sort of justification for why it is necessarily in the public’s interest to have an individual’s land be seized, compensated for, and resold to someone else.
But that’s exactly the point. It is not unconstitutional until there is specific defintion of “public use” in play. Furthermore, I find it interesting that you rely on precedence for your argument; unless and until the Court decides to overturn all the previous relevant eminent domain cases, this is what we’re stuck with (egregious though it may be).
I’ll take a swing – because when the act is wrong in the first place, “good for the goose, good for the gander” is not a proper expression of justice? More succinctly, “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
Not that it couldn’t be characterized as “poetic justice”, nor would it bother me personally all that much (beyond the already simmering anger I have for this type of action).
That, to me, is the crux of the issue. If the state was willing to pay what the property is actually worth – and by that I mean, provide a profit to the property owner akin to the same level of profit the private developer and the state itself expect – this might have been a legitimate decision.
But in essence, the state is NOT willing. The whole point of the taking being “public benefit” is that they anticipate making money out of the deal, and giving the property owners a commensurately greater share of that eats into the profit they foresee. Sure, they COULD offer enough that they’d effectively be “partners” in the profit – but instead, it’s more profitabel, and apparently easy enough, to invoke eminent domain: seize the property for a lesser amount, and then milk it for the profits.
This is about leveraging the power of the state to force people to sell – specifically, to sell at lower prices.
It’s a long-established legal doctrine that words in a legal document mean something, unless there’s simply no way to sensibly interpret the words in question. The decision that confiscation is purely a matter of state discretion contradicts that principle by making the phrase “public use” meaningless.
I beg your pardon. It does not make it meaningless, it merely makes it definitionally synonymous with state discretion, as has always been the case with eminent domain, even before the U.S. Constitution was written and amended. The language of the Fifth Amendment merely acknowledges that, nothing more.
It most certainly does. Your interpretation is consistent with a text from which the words “for public use” has been expunged completely… and hence must be erroneous unless you can show that there is just no rational way of interpreting the phrase as it actually exists.
You still don’t get it. The drafters of the amendment merely included the phrase “for public use” to make it clear what they were talking about – i.e., eminent domain, as opposed to a fine or punishment (which is covered in the preceding clause). They were not trying to specify or delimit the use to which such property could be put; a “taking for public use” is merely another way of saying “eminent domain.”
Just out of curiosity, how many of those arguing so strenuously here have actually read the text of the Kelo decision? I admit that I haven’t, but from reading summaries of the decision, it seems to me that the decision is at least plausible and logical, not some kind of outrageous out-of-left-field boner.
I don’t think there is any case to be made that the Supreme Court has either ducked its responsibilities or has made an unprecedented power grab or somesuch. The Supreme Court has merely deferred to the authority of the duly elected legislature and executive to define “public use.” (And, for those of you who are scared of such deferral, all indications are that Roberts and Alito are going to make you spin.)
SteveMB, you keep repeating the same argument over and over, but you fail to take into account that this kind of textual interpretation is not the only principle of Constitutional interpretation that is in play. It makes you look like the law student who thinks he knows all about the law after attending just one class session. If the answer were so simple, why would we all be arguing about it? Is the whole world except for you just plain disingenuous?
This is question begging. The Supreme Court’s decision was that this act was not prohibited by the Constitution. If you disagree with their conclusion, then you must argue agains their actual reasoning. Do you think they are just making this up or maybe having a laugh?
Your disagreement with the level of compensation is not the difference between a legitimate and an illegitimate decision.
On the contrary, all the Supreme Court did was rule on whether the legislature had the power to act as it did. What new law did it create? What changes did it make? Maybe this is one of the few things that shows that you and your father don’t make logical arguments.
Now, I personally don’t like the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision. That doesn’t mean that the court’s decision was wrong or irresponsible or illegitimate or unjustified. It means that we have three branches of government (at multiple leves) and we have civic tools to express our opinions on policy with respect to all of them and we should use all of them.
We should not depend on the Supreme Court to decide everything the way we think things should be and then scream about illegitimacy when we don’t like the result. The Supreme Court has made its decision based on sound legal reasoning. You don’t like that? Change the law or change the Constitution. But don’t knee-jerk that the court is being willfully deviant, as if the justices’ only consideration was to thwart you personally. It has become almost an automatic reflex to do so and it speaks ill of the public’s willingness to think critically and to hold its elected officials to account.
Well, to clarify, I don’t really agree or disagree with the level of compensation. It’s the property owners involved who found it inadequate.
I merely observed that the state’s response was to use eminent domain to acquire the property without meeting the property owners’ price, and further opined that acquiring the land at a value lower than the expected final price is (of course) critical to generating the economic benefit (which was the purported justification for the public good for which eminent domain was exercised in the first place).
Whether the Supreme Court’s agreement that the state could do legally that is legitimate or not is outside the scope of my expertise. I only know it was wrongheaded, and that it portends evil consequences for those without influence in society.
You said that the fifth amendment doesn’t cover the case we are talking about in Kelo. How then is the SCOTUS supposed to rule for the homeowners if the fifth amendment does not cover this situation?
A quick search will show that I was as upset as anyone by the Kelo ruling, and outraged that the Supreme Court would allow such a thing. Nevertheless, the attempt to seize Souter’s home is wrong on so many levels. Let me count the ways.
Firstly, two wrongs don’t make a right. If person A commits unacceptable act B, that doesn’t make it okay for person C to also commit unacceptable act B. Not even if person C says “payback’s a bitch” while doing so.
Souter did not commit the act of seizing private property for private use via eminent domain. It’s the developers and the local authorities who are responsible for taking the land, not the Supreme Court.
These people aren’t attempting to take Souter’s land for public use (however you define it). They say they’re taking it for public use, but in reality this attempt at using eminent domain is just pointing a middle finger at Souter and others.
This entire action looks snarky, arrogant and nasty. It is, frankly, a publicity stunt, and a stupid one at that. Suppose that against all odds, they did manage to take Souter’s home. What then? What would that prove? Nothing.
This entire episode is emblematic of why libertarians/ laissez faire types have so much trouble getting widespread support for their movement. They refuse to take the issue seriously, and instead engage in this juvenile stunt which they erroneously believe to be clever and witty.
I think what would prohibit this is that the legislature would not pass such a law. In fact, the law would require a bond issue (unless the State of California has, what $500 Billion lying around?), so I’ll bet the voters would have to approve it, too. Furthermore, challenging a property tax assessment is not difficult and frequently meets with some success, although never as much as you’d like. For the State (The State collects property taxes out there?) to answer these challenges in a timely enough fashion to not have the assessments oveturned immediately would require hiring a small army of civil servants. Honestly, the government has been doing this for years. I now live in a city. At the center of this city is a shopping mall. Has been since 1962. How do you suppose it came to be there?
If that’s how you feel, fine. I, on the other hand, have never said "thank you sir may I have another” to someone who is taking my possessions against my will.
Souter authorized it. He is absolutely complicit in the act.
I see. It’s ok if you steal someone’s greatest possession as long as you make a profit on it and give some back as compensation.
If it looks snarky, arrogant, nasty, and stupid it’s because the Supreme Court decision made it so. It would prove that a fool and his castle are soon parted if someone with more money wants it.
The entire episode illustrates why the decision was wrong. With the stroke of a pen, 5 of 9 people legislated away 200 years of accepted parameters for eminent domain. They were not elected, and cannot be removed from office.