Mary Catherine Ham supplies some background on the property rights case…
UPDATE 4: Just in case you don’t know about Kelo, here are the basics. Some folks in New London, Conn. owned their homes and businesses for years in a little middle-class neighborhood. Then along came a big pharmaceutical firm that wanted to build a plant and high-end condos and hotels in the same spot these New London homeowners lived. The City handed over eminent domain powers to a private development group, who then notified citizens their homes would be bulldozed by such-and-such date and they would be compensated. So long! The entirejustification for this eminent domain taking is that the high-end development will produce more tax revenue than regular old citizens living in their houses, so it’s actually a public use. (emphasis
added)
This sounds scary to me. I’m in little danger of having my property “seized” but think of it this way, the worse financial shape the county or city you live in is, the better the possibility that eminant domain could be used to “take” your property and turn it into a better tax revenue generator. I don’t think this is a poor interpretation of the 5th amendment.
Read the whole article with additional links here.
