Eminent Domain Round Up
With Kelo coming today (CNN has a summary), here’s what blogs saying:
Eric – Constitutional violations aside, something about this process would seem to invite political chicanery, if not outright corruption. Want a good deal on a piece of property? Contribute large sums of money to the right guy’s campaign, and it’ll be yours for a song!
Southern Appeal: – According to the Petitioner’s brief, the City and a private development corporation seek to take Petitioners’ 15 homes to turn them over to other private parties in the hope that the City may benefit from whatever trickle-down effects those new businesses produce. Petitioners argue that the majority opinion below incorrectly equated “public use” with the ordinary “public” benefits – taxes and jobs – that typically flow from private business enterprises. The Petitioners urge the Court to adopt a bright-line rule that the possible increase in taxes and jobs does not qualify as a public use.
Tim Cavanaugh has a link rich post that with too much info to quote. Go read.
Pejman Yousefzadeh offers checks to address abuse of eminent domain.
The Institute for Justice has more.
Stephen Green rightly calls it legalized theft.
Update: Lobbygow is on it too.
It seems that one thing most sides of the political spectrum can agree on is that eminent domain abuse sucks.
