Awful! Here’s a link to another article.

The same liberal jackasses recently upheld the federal government’s right to enforce pot laws despite state laws that had legalized medical marijuana – and yesterday the feds raided pot clubs in San Fran and a bunch of people are likely being charged under RICO laws. You can read the justice’s opinions here.

As I recall, on the medical marijuana issue, it was the conservative justices who ruled against the states – which was hypocritical, IMO. This one is more surprising to me, in that the conservative justices decided in line with a broad view of the 5th Amendment.

...“by the (rich) people, for the (rich) people”...

Oh, and by the way, taking property for environmental reasons, rather than big rich developer reasons, is against the Constitution… yep yep, ya betcha. What a bunch of hypocritical assholes.

Shogo – The dissenting justices (pro-states rights) on the pot law case were: Thomas, O’Connor, and Rehnquist. Scalia filed a concurrence with Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Stephens, and Breyer in supporting federal enforcement. Thomas’ dissent was pretty good . It’s pretty fucked up when I find myself agreeing with Clarence Thomas so frequently.

Ah, OK. I remember Thomas dissented. It was Scalia I was thinking of.

True conservatives are philosophically in support of liberty. Neocons are just fascists by another name.

This bit is interesting: From MSNBC

—

Where other states stand
According to the residents’ filing, the seven states that allow condemnations for private business development alone are Connecticut, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and North Dakota.

Eight states forbid the use of eminent domain when the economic purpose is not to eliminate blight; they are Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington.

Another three — Delaware, New Hampshire and Massachusetts — have indicated they probably will find condemnations for economic development alone unconstitutional, while the remaining states have not addressed or spoken clearly to the question.

—

“Welcome to Washington. We’ll let you keep your house.”

-VO (fucktile hater edit)

Another victory for Corporate America.

in Norwood, a city very closely tied to cincinnati, the local gov’t has been using eminent domain for almost a decade now to reappropriate and redevelop private property, so when i read about this decision my immediate thought was “this is new?”

i’m wondering now if norwood has been acting illegally or if the residents were just too damned stupid to know their rights – all of which is sort of inconsequential after this ruling, but neither would surprise me.

good to see resistance mounting to this bullshit (at least in CA) –

Eminent domain ruling chills property owners
Fear of land grabs unites odd coalition

Jim Herron Zamora

Monday, July 18, 2005

An Oakland auto shop owner wants to save a business his family has owned since 1949. The owner of a dilapidated Art Deco theater in Alameda is resisting plans to replace it with a multiplex, while a 70-year-old man who wants to erect a “green” building in Santa Cruz is fighting city efforts to seize his vacant lot.

Those and other property battles in Northern California have gained new attention since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision last month made it easier for local governments to force unwilling property owners to sell using eminent domain.

The decision, based on a Connecticut case in which a city wanted to tear down an older waterfront neighborhood and turn it over to a developer, makes it easier for cities and counties to help rebuild aging downtowns and construct projects such as BART transit villages. Emboldened by the high court’s ruling, the agencies argue that economic development benefiting a region outweighs individual property rights.

But it has also led to a growing backlash and galvanized an odd coalition: Conservative property rights advocates see eminent domain as big government run amok, while liberals and minorities view it as a tool for powerful developers to tear up communities and bully the little guy.

“No one should have to worry about losing your home to some politically connected developer,” said state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks. “There are 6,000 public agencies in California that now have the power to seize your home, pay you pennies on the dollar for it, and then give it to somebody else for their own personal gain and profit.”

On Thursday, McClintock and state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter (Kern County), introduced a bill to prevent public agencies from taking land from one private owner and giving it to another for development purposes.

And conservative U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, is working with liberal urban representatives Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, and John Conyers of Michigan to deny federal funds to cities that use eminent domain to benefit private developers.

“It’s kind of a strange coalition,” Pombo said Friday. “But there is something about taking your property this way that makes lots of Americans angry. The reason that we have a Bill of Rights is to protect individuals from the majority.”

If passed, the bills would stop projects in Alameda and Santa Cruz, and could force changes in Oakland and dozens of other cities.

Redevelopment is a process that allows cities to keep a bigger portion of future property tax revenues in a given area, which can amount to millions of dollars if businesses move in and new homes are built. That process has allowed San Francisco to rebuild much of the South of Market area and Emeryville to transform itself from an industrial slum to a regional shopping hub.

Cities with pending projects point out the long-term benefits of redevelopment. In Santa Cruz, the city has rebuilt much of downtown after the Loma Prieta earthquake devastated the area in 1989. In Alameda, city officials are using redevelopment to bring in new businesses, including what they hope will be the city’s first multiplex theater.

Local government must declare the target zone to be blighted in order for it to become eligible for redevelopment. That once was relatively easy in many communities. Much of Oakland below Interstate 580, for example, has been a redevelopment area for decades.

But with property values skyrocketing in the Bay Area, many residents have become wary of redevelopment and panic at the idea of eminent domain.

“Redevelopment is good way to keep money in a community and fund improvements that we can’t afford any other way,” said Oakland City Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who has been meeting with skeptical residents and neighbors about plans to turn much of the North Oakland flatlands into a redevelopment area. “But I respect the concerns of people who worry about this. ... This is a discussion we need to have.”

At a community meeting Wednesday, Brunner pointed out projects that redevelopment has funded in the city — new development adjacent to the Fruitvale BART station and attractive new sidewalks and bike trails along Mandela Parkway in West Oakland.

In Oakland, many of the properties that the city has bought and resold to developers in the past were nearly abandoned structures or buildings that were covered with graffiti.

But on July 1, John Revelli and Tony Fung were evicted from their profitable but small owner-operated auto repair shops near the 19th Street BART station to make way for the Uptown Project, which is expected to include nearly 1,200 apartments and condominiums. The development, which is receiving a $61 million public subsidy, is the centerpiece of Mayor Jerry Brown’s plan to bring 10,000 more residents to downtown Oakland.

Revelli, 65, grew up helping his father and uncle in the family tire shop and worked there full time since he was 19.

“I just want to stay in business,” Revelli said after giving his keys to a city employee. “But it’s impossible for me to find another location that good in downtown Oakland. We owned the property and had low overhead. I can’t match that at another site. They put me out of business.”

Eminent domain has also left bitter feelings in San Jose and Redwood City, where property owners successfully resisted efforts to force them to sell.

In San Jose, a multiethnic group of merchants at the Tropicana Shopping Center won its court battle in 2003 and stopped a city effort to condemn the mall as blighted and turn it over to a private developer for redevelopment. City officials have not decided whether to try again in light of the Supreme Court decision.

In Redwood City, the Celotti family finally agreed last year to sell their downtown property to city’s redevelopment agency — for about five times its original offer. Their decision followed a San Mateo County Superior Court ruling that the city could not use eminent domain to condemn the property. But the ruling came too late — the Celottis’ building had been demolished in 2003. The city paid them $3 million and made a formal apology as part of the settlement.

Ron Lau of Santa Cruz and John Cocores in Alameda are fighting redevelopment efforts despite the Supreme Court decision.

Lau, 70, owns a now-vacant lot that formerly housed a popular downtown bookstore and cafe that were seriously damaged in the earthquake. Lau, 70, wants to create “a self-sufficient, fully green building” on the lot but has been unable to obtain financing for his project. In an effort to hasten development, the city is trying to force him to sell so another developer can take over.

“I don’t like being pressured,’‘ said Lau, who rejected $1.6 million for his lot on Pacific Avenue. “I care about this property and what happens to it. Otherwise I would have sold out.”

Cocores owns the 1932-vintage Alameda Theater and some adjacent storefront property on Central Avenue near Park Street in Alameda. The city offered him $1.5 million in May for the 33,000-square- foot concrete and steel- frame structure. But Cocores’ real estate agent said the property would be worth more than twice that figure if not for the looming threat of eminent domain.

“We’re real far apart on the price,” said Cocores’ agent, Don Lindsey. “That property was appraised at $3 million. It’s not fair to force him to take less.”

Pombo, who tracks local eminent domain disputes, pledges that help is on the way.

“A movie theater, a department store or a mall are not public uses,” Pombo said Friday. “They are not taking this land to build roads to schools or parks; they are just helping politically powerful interests. I’d like to stop projects like these dead in their tracks. “

New word for the modern lexicon, courtesy of SCOTUS....

“Landjacking”.

Just call it what it is…

-VO

“Landjacking”

sounds good to me – who coined it?

As far as I know, I did. ;)

-VO

oh, when you said SCOTUS I thought maybe someone used it in a dissent.

/me adds to growing index of intraweb neologisms

House Vote Counters Eminent Domain Measure

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 3, 6:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON – Contending that the Supreme Court has undermined a pillar of American society, the sanctity of the home, the House overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday to block the court-approved seizure of private property for use by developers.

The bill, passed 376-38, would withhold federal money from state and local governments that use powers of eminent domain to force businesses and homeowners to give up their property for commercial uses.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling in June, recognized the power of local governments to seize property needed for private development projects that generate tax revenue. The decision drew criticism from private property, civil rights, farm and religious groups that said it was an abuse of the Fifth Amendment’s “takings clause.” That language provides for the taking of private property, with fair compensation, for public use.

The court’s June decision, said
House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., changed established constitutional principles by holding that “any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party.”

The ruling in Kelo v. City of New London allowed the Connecticut city to exercise state eminent domain law to require several homeowners to cede their property for commercial use.

With this “infamous” decision, said Rep. Phil Gingrey (news, bio, voting record), R-Ga., “homes and small businesses across the country have been placed in grave jeopardy and threatened by the government wrecking ball.”

The bill, said Chip Mellor, president of the Institute for Justice, which represented the Kelo homeowners before the Supreme Court, “highlights the fact that this nation’s eminent domain and urban renewal laws need serious and substantial changes.”

But opponents argued that the federal government should not be interceding in what should be a local issue. “We should not change federal law every time members of Congress disagree with the judgment of a locality when it uses eminent domain for the purpose of economic development,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (news, bio, voting record), D-Va.

The legislation is the latest, and most far-reaching, of several congressional responses to the court ruling. The House previously passed a measure to bar federal transportation money from going for improvements on land seized for private development. The Senate approved an amendment to a transportation spending bill applying similar restrictions. The bill now moves to the Senate, where Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, has introduced companion legislation.

About half the states are also considering changes in their laws to prevent takings for private use.

The Bush administration, backing the House bill, said in a statement that “private property rights are the bedrock of the nation’s economy and enjoy constitutionally protected status. They should also receive an appropriate level of protection by the federal government.”

The House bill would cut off for two years all federal economic development funds to states and localities that use economic development as a rationale for property seizures. It also would bar the federal government from using eminent domain powers for economic development.

“By subjecting all projects to penalties, we are removing a loophole that localities can exploit by playing a ‘shell game’ with projects,” said Rep. Henry Bonilla (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, a chief sponsor.

The House, by a voice vote, approved Gingrey’s proposal to bar states or localities in pursuit of more tax money from exercising eminent domain over nonprofit or tax-exempt religious organizations. Churches, he said, “should not have to fear because God does not pay enough in taxes.”

Eminent domain, the right of government to take property for public use, is typically used for projects that benefit an entire community, such as highways, airports or schools.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion in Kelo, said in an August speech that while he had concerns about the results, the ruling was legally correct because the high court has “always allowed local policy-makers wide latitude in determining how best to achieve legitimate public goals.”

Several lawmakers who opposed the House bill said eminent domain has long been used by local governments for economic development projects such as the Inner Harbor in Baltimore and the cleaning up of Times Square in New York. The District of Columbia is expected to use eminent domain to secure land for a new baseball stadium for the Washington Nationals.

i think something similar is happening in new york with columbia university claiming eminent domain, and basically kicking the poor off their land so it can “develop” these historical sites in harlem… the poor, being very poor, usually renters, get little or no compensation, and with columbia being one of the biggest land owners in N.Y.C ( i think the second or third biggest), it’s not like there’s much significant opposition…

justice for all in the land of liberty i suppose…