In pure commercial terms, the value of your property just went down too. No?

Yesterday, in most states, a developer had only one way to take your property from you. Today, he has two (competing) ways to get it from you.

"Public use" (often substituted by "public purpose" by statists who dishonestly maintain that the terms are synonymous) now encompasses all human activity, just like "interstate commerce" . Essentially, there is no longer any limit to state power in our society, especially when one considers the Court having failed to overturn McCain-Feingold.

Well, there goes the co-op! Hello, Wal-Mart!!

Ain't socialism great??

It makes me curious if the demand for firearms just went up yesterday.

They might be liberal SC judges Mitch, but the city councils that back the corporate power plays are Republican as often as not.

Either you stand against CORPORATIONS running roughshod over us, or you don't. The judges just codified the way states and municipalities have done business for decades.

This is bigger than liberals vs. conservatives: this is about pro-corporate hacks vs. individual rights.

If you're really interested in fighting this, I'd be glad to lend my support and so would most other liberals. Fight the real power and stop corporate abuse of civil liberties and property rights!

Mark,

"They might be liberal SC judges Mitch, but the city councils that back the corporate power plays are Republican as often as not."

The more I look at these things, the more I realize that "the establishment" is omnipolitical and apolitical; the only politics that matter are "what benefits them". They make allies all over the political spectrum.

"Either you stand against CORPORATIONS running roughshod over us, or you don't. The judges just codified the way states and municipalities have done business for decades."

True.

"This is bigger than liberals vs. conservatives: this is about pro-corporate hacks vs. individual rights. "

I agree. It's about the establishment using the coercive power of government to get themselves a better deal.

"If you're really interested in fighting this, I'd be glad to lend my support and so would most other liberals. Fight the real power and stop corporate abuse of civil liberties and property rights!"

I'm really interested in fighting this.

Really, really interested.

GREAT!

I dunno what the solution is, but so long as it's focused on curbing corporate eminent domain powers, I'll do what I can.

Locally we might want to develop a nonpartisan pledge for local candidates putting them on record as being opposed to eminent domain except in HIGHLY PUBLICIZED procedings done in full public view. No closed meetings, no breakfasts at Embers with developers, no hanky panky.

Minnesota Observer is correct in posting at my blog that this is, technically speaking, a local rights issue that was upheld. It's just that in practice these local rights are routinely subordinated to out of state corporate or land development interests.

What we need is lots of sunlight and fresh air. I'm confident few communities would uphold property seizure if all they were getting out of it was a new big box store, or a corporate headquarters for folks who use six-figure accountants to help them evade their share of taxes.

All we need to do now is sign up Flash and we'll have a right-center-left coalition that can't be beat!

Then later, after we've won, we can go back to arguing the war, social security and Karl Rove's halitosis problem...

I don't really like this decision either. However, I think you overreact when it comes to the precedent set for property rights. The decision doesn't stake any new ground out on the matter that is substantially different than Midkiff. In fact, it really just throws the decision into the hands of local government.

The question then becomes, "Who is determining public good in local government." My beef with this question is that there is too much money-for-access to make this decision work in the real world. O'Connor's dissent stated quite clearly that economic status has a lot to do with this process and that you really can't separate private gain from public good in matters relating to economic development.

The problem with this is that the constitution doesn't (and shouldn't) address the problem of money-for-access. This is an individual responsibility and...I guess, one that the legislature could take up and make into law if it could get off the addiction of money.

As much as I don't like the decision, I think it's the right decision constitutionally...not so much in the real world.

I posted more on it here:
http://monkeysponge.blogspot.com/2005/06/kelo-kelo-kelo.html

To target corporations for running roughshod over individual property rights misses the point. By and large, if you work in the private sector, you work for a corporation. That a corporation, from Mom's Day Care to ExxonMobil, acts in the best interests of its shareholders, employees, and customers is the basis of any free market economy. It's how stuff works.

Representative government is the means by which we, the people, regulate the economic expansion of corporations in the public domain for the "greater good," as determined by the people's elected representatives and the rule of law. The problem we face today is that too many of our elected representatives DO NOT REPRESENT our individual rights as defined by the Constitution, but serve instead the coincidence of interests between their own political ambitions and the corporations' propensity to expand their economic horizons. For these people, it's all about the money, not the Bill of Rights.

What liberals must come to understand is that it is THEIR party which has consistently thrown the rights of the individual onto the ash heap of history, from gun control and smoking bans to parental and environmental restrictions and beyond. The Democrat Party's unprecedented filibustering of judicial nominees and its implementation of the unconstitutional supramajority rule is just but two more examples. For it is not the conservative Supreme Court justices who just eliminated the rights of the shopkeeper, religious congregation, or community association standing in the way of "progress" as defined by the State, it is the LIBERAL Supreme Court justices who just struck down the Fifth Amendment.

Welcome to the arena, Mr. Gisleson. But as for arguing the war and social security, while the issues may be different, the underlying principle is precisely the same.

"They might be liberal SC judges Mitch, but the city councils that back the corporate power plays are Republican as often as not" states Mr. Gisleson

How many Republicans do you think there are on Mpls. & St. Paul city council, or any large metropolitan city council....I'll give you a hint they are very much in the minority....it's not Republican lawmakers you have to worry about regarding private property rights.

A good decision on the law, a bad one for liberty. The only way the SCOTUS could've overturned was to play activist judges; that would've been fine with me, of course (I have no objection to juges being "activistic").

No, the proper way to get this fixed is obvious: get congress going. Hey, Mitch, your party controls the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Don't sit around whining and crying about liberal judges; get going and write laws making emminent domain issues standard across the country.

I'll even support it--because in point of fact, this is injurious to property rights. I'll write glowingly about the Republicans.

I'll also enjoy those flying pigs, because the current GOP regime has shown that if there's one thing they're for, it's leveraging the power of government for the benefit of businesses.

"If this be the law, then the law is an ass".

And let's not plead holier-than-thouness. IF the GOP has been in bed with business interests on eminent domain (a plausible but I suspect overstated case, inasmuch as "the establishment" is both omnipolitical and apolitical), then there can be little doubt that it's the left that's abused eminent domain for government interests; the western half of the US is up in various degrees of arms (almost literally) over various public takings for dubious environment and mitigation projects. And that, pallie, is a lefty joint.

But I'm not interested in pointing at the left and going "seeeeeeee?", beyond pointing out the justices in yesterday's decision. Both sides have a lot to repent for. And both sides are going to need to wake up.

I don't get how you are so worked up about this. It really didn't change anything from Midkiff. Instead of poor people getting an apartment building, rich people got a development. It's the inverse of Midkiff. This was more an affirmation of previous law than anything else. The only thing that was really different was that Kelo petitioned the court to intervene on the Federal level with some standards for the effectiveness of economic development and they refused to step on the toes of what local governments already had the right to do.

The only thing this really highlights is that local governments can be a tad bit easier to influence by big money than can state or federal govt. If ConAgra wants a bigger building smack dab in the heart of midtown Omaha, hot damnit they are going to get it passed.

This has been going on for a while. What has changed? This decision isn't about individual property rights that the "left" has supposedly wasted away over the years. If you want to protect your property rights, you don't elect people who will take money for votes/support on economic development. Better yet, you elect people who will pass laws that will ensure what the court wisely stayed away from...making sure that private gain doesn't buy the public good.

".....your party controls the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Don't sit around whining and crying about liberal judges; get going and write laws making emminent domain issues standard across the country."
----------------------
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution made eminent domain issues standard across the country. We have the law. We've had it for more than 200 years. The problem is laws that have failed in the legislature have been imposed by an unelected and unaccountable judiciary without the consent of the people. It is by such judicial fiat that private property ownership is now subject to the ambitions of the State or local city council. We have lost our Constitutional right, not by the legislative process, but through the activism of liberal appointments to the Judiciary. What value has the Legislature now if the Judiciary can simply issue decrees from the bench, negating not only what laws as may pass, but our rights as set forth in the U.S. Constitution?
------------------
"I'll also enjoy those flying pigs, because the current GOP regime has shown that if there's one thing they're for, it's leveraging the power of government for the benefit of businesses."
------------------
Ah. A political party that's pro-business? Horrors! That the GOP favors business owners and their shareholders, business employees, and business customers merely reflects the Constitution at work in this representative republic. What's the alternative? A political party that OPPOSES business owners and their shareholders, business employees, and business customers? That is precisely the problem we have today. The party supposedly representing "the little guy" has been and is now screwing the little guy, telling him who he may hire, what wage he must pay, what customers he may serve, and what location he can own. Isn't that what ran the USSR to ground? Isn't that how China does business today? Is this not communism?

And which party is it today representing and seeking (and apparently succeeding) to impose this foreign ideology? Just what exactly was the arrangement between Loral, Bill Clinton, and the Chinese politburo? And just how did we get from Oliver Wendell Holmes to Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Was it the "pro-business" party? Or the party of the "little guy?"

Shame on those liberal activist judges for acting like pro-corporate conservatives!

Shame Shame Shame...

Be careful what you ask for guys. You just might get it.

Dan,

Eminent Domain crosses both political boundaries.

During the '50s and '60s, "Urban Renewal" led to the gutting via eminent domain of many inner cities (including Minneapolis' Phillips and St. Paul's Rondo neighborhoods), and the destruction of vaste swathes of old but sound buildings, purely on social-engineering grounds. Wal-Mart and Phizer don't hold a candle to the great liberal captains of society who had a better plan for ALL of us - and who played a huge role in the problems of America's inner cities today.

Just saying, you guys have at least as much to apologize for.

I don't think it was done "purely" on social-engineering grounds. Let's not forget about Fred Ossanna and Carl Pohlad's takedown of TCRT.

Outside of SW Mpls, the construction associated with what was left in the wake of TCRT accounted for a fair amount of eminent domain cases here in the metro.

I don't think this is so much an ideological function as it is one of just who happens to be sitting in office when folks with money come a' callin.

To me, this problem seems to be one based in irresponsibility in government rather than ideology...and if there is anything worse than big government it is bad government.

I guess the big problem I have with the decision is that I completely agree with O'Connor's economic reasoning in her dissent. However, I think it makes for bad law in the face of the constitution. I guess the only way to "bridge the gap" between her dissent and proper public policy is if the legislature decides to take action on this matter.

The problem, Cleversponge, is what Liberals are now only waking up to is the implementation, in Kelo v. New London, of their own ideology. For decades, liberals have applauded usurpation by the State for the "greater good." What they have not been able to pass in the Legislature through democratic process they have achieved through the Judiciary by decree. Now that the Liberal ideology has redounded squarely upon their own doorstep, Liberals decry the "irresponsibilty" of government. Gadzooks. What do you think the "right" has been arguing all these years??

From Roe v. Wade to McCain-Feingold Liberals have consistently lobbied for and applauded the erosion of our Constitutional rights, all for the "greater good," which is now and always has been the preferred euphemism for imposing Big Government and expanding its powers by usurping the rights of individual Americans. Today's "irresponsible" government, particularly the Judiciary, is precisely, exactly, and directly the result of electing Liberal representives allegiant to a foreign ideology of centralized government, not the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Consequently, we live in a country today where the Executive can torch a religious compound, put a machine-gun to the head of a six-year-old boy, and put an invalid to death. The Judiciary can overrule States' laws regulating commerce, abortion, free speech, and individual property rights secure in the knowledge that a MINORITY, in the Legislature, will do everything in its power, including the repudiation of the U.S. Constitution, to prevent its accountability to the people of these United States.

And now, because it is YOUR home and YOUR business the State can usurp for the "greater good," perhaps it's time for the Legislature to take action?? Where've you been, sir? Why wasn't it time to take action when it was MY home and MY business??

That's a rhetorical point. Welcome to the arena. We really need your help. Better late, than never.

My point is that this has nothing to do with ideology. Doing something for money and personal gain is something that whispers gently to all ideologies. The only thing anyone (not just us libruls) needs to wake up to is that private gain for public good has been going on a lot longer than the current outrage would have one believe.

Aside from your wild generalizations ("Liberals have consistently lobbied for and applauded the erosion of our Constitutional rights, all for the "greater good,"), you kind of prove my point about the apolitical nature of the willingness of certain people to trample on individual rights. McCain and Feingold...the "right" arguing for many years...the Republicans have been the majority party for quite some time now. They've really done quite the job of shrinking government. Of course, not much has been done by the party in power on this matter. What do we do when someone we agree with doesn't get stuff done? We blame the librul courts. What do we do when the librul courts say that it is a matter for state legislatures to decide? Well, I'm kind of curious for that response as you are running out of scapegoats.

As for this...

"Today's "irresponsible" government, particularly the Judiciary, is precisely, exactly, and directly the result of electing Liberal representives allegiant to a foreign ideology of centralized government, not the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights."

This is insane. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean that it is traitorous. You need to stop blaming imaginary people just because you don't agree with the way the country is going.

Since we're ending on rhetorical points...go join hands with David Koresh. Help him save HIS home from evil Uncle Sam and his pitchfork weilding ATF agents.

Don't want your house taken (seriously, what are the odds), don't elect people to office who will take it. Those activist judges didn't act and now you have the opportunity to do so in their place. Vote, volunteer...whatever. Let me know how it goes if you come up against something like Best Buy or the airport.

My help on this matter will come in the form of working to get the money out of politics. Whoops, that's another curb on freedom...can't do that.

Back at square one.

If your point is money too often trumps ideology in the political arena, then you'll find no challenge here to your argument. But to suggest that the GOP has "been the majority party for quite some time" belies your ignorance of history, as it has not been the majority party in all three branches of government presumably ever before in your lifetime or mine, other than the past 6 months.

The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has been the Law of the Land since December 15, 1791 and states that no individual may be "...DEPRIVED OF LIFE, LIBERTY, OR PROPERTY, WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF LAW; NOR SHALL PRIVATE PROPERTY BE TAKEN FOR PUBLIC USE WITHOUT JUST COMPENSATION."

What part of this assertion do you not understand? Conservatives have been fighting to uphold this amendment across the map for the last 40 years, and losing, because activist liberal judges have consistently ruled the State's "greater good" argument (money in politics) supercedes our individual rights. That is why, Cleversponge, the liberal, activist Supreme Court justices ruled in support of McCain-Feingold -- to prevent you and me from exercising our right to free speech in the political marketplace, so as to better prevent our electing representatives to the Legislature who could then pass laws for our protection under the Constitution.

To decry the Liberal justices' ruling on the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the Fifth Amendment is not just some lamentation against "imaginary people," but an outrageous assault on civil liberties, yours and mine, eliminating our right to own property, except as the State permits. This is the essence of Communism, a foreign ideology, Cleversponge, which also abhors freedom of speech and assembly. Is it not "traitorous" to impose it by Judicial fiat after already having restricted democratic representation in the Legislative bodies of the American people?

The rest of your argument is incoherent, particulary with respect to David Koresh, whose family, however oddly defined, was incinerated, children and all, on orders found in a directive issued by the Executive Branch of the Clinton Administration, which you likely helped vote into office, and which appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose Marxist ideology had long been established, and who, in her consenting opinions, overruled your right to free speech and to own private property.

Now that we're in this hole together, Cleversponge, it might help you keep up if you turned off the iPod and put down the bong.

OK this sentence:

"belies your ignorance of history"

followed by this one:

as it has not been the majority party in all three branches of government presumably ever before in your lifetime or mine, other than the past 6 months.

Very nice. Only 6 months huh? You are aware that majority means "most of" not "all". Just checking. Words can be confusing.

"What part of this assertion do you not understand?"

The part that defines "public use". Oh wait, that's not in there.

"to prevent you and me from exercising our right to free speech in the political marketplace, so as to better prevent our electing representatives to the Legislature who could then pass laws for our protection under the Constitution."

Yes, this has worked out smashingly so far. Money really does a good job with helping our politicians do the right thing. Didn't you begin your response with this:

"If your point is money too often trumps ideology in the political arena, then you'll find no challenge here to your argument"

In all seriousness, how does one deal with the problem of wealth and private property/free speech? Private gain is obviously tied to public good in the case of economic development. Likewise, private wealth obviously opens up doors in public politics.

How can you say that money is welcome in one but not in the other(activist liberal judges have consistently ruled the State's "greater good" argument [money in politics])? One is a 1st amendment issue...the other the 5th. What possible test can you devise to say that wealth should play into a 5th amendment decision but not the 1st? The constitution provides no protection for poor people.

"To decry the Liberal justices' ruling on the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the Fifth Amendment"

There is no possible way that you will ever be taken seriously with a statement like that. It's 100% BS. SCOTUS didn't strike down the 5th amendment. Not even close. This is simply not accurate. Anything you say after this is a joke.

You build on your nonsense with this:

"eliminating our right to own property"

and this...

"This is the essence of Communism, a foreign ideology, Cleversponge, which also abhors freedom of speech and assembly."

Wow, the Communism card. I'm impressed. I have no idea what you are talking about here:

"after already having restricted democratic representation in the Legislative bodies of the American people?"

Who's doing that? The Communists? The Branch Davidians? ATF?

Yes, you are right. The rest of my argument is incoherent. Silly me for putting the name of Koresh along side your example of a "torched" "religious compound". Silly me for suggesting that the best way to change all of this would be to get involved in the electoral and legislative process. Is that Communist too?

Thank you for saving the best for last:

"[Ginsberg] overruled your right to free speech and to own private property."

Once again. You are insane.

And, just so you know, I do uncut heroin...not marijuana...and I listen to iRiver not iPod.

At the very least, you could get your ridiculous assumptions straight.

Must've struck a nerve, ay? If you don't know the facts, argue the law. If you don't know the law, argue the facts. If you don't know the law OR the facts, pound your shoe, declare your opponent insane, and run screaming hysterically out of the arena. Very impressive! Out of Ritalin?

Perhaps once the vapors clear you may realize upon reflection, as no doubt our readers already have, that not only have you illustrated the point but abundantly defined the problem.

The Founders, in their arduous effort to get it exactly right, wrote the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights using language simple enough that any two drunks up to their eyeballs in crude tavern rum could at least understand it.

Apparently, in your case they aimed too high.

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