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Eminent Domain: Exploiting the 5th Amendment to destroy private property rights


Topics covered include:

• How the the 5^th Amendment of the US Constitution has been exploited to uproot private property rights.
• Why the Founders of the USA intended to limit the power of eminent domain.
• Did all of them believe eminent domain was right and necessary?
• Contrasting what the US Founders intended versus what is being done with eminent domain today.
• In Australia it called "compulsory acquisition".
•  Court decision regarding the Federal Urban Renewal program, when the Supreme Court re-defined term “public use” in a loose, vague way that left property rights vulnerable to virtually anything the government chooses to call “public use” or “public good” or “public interest”, including taking property from a homeowner or small business owner to give it to a company that will bring in more taxes.
•  The new definition of “blight” – one of the key condemnation reasons to make property land ripe for the taking.  Is your house blighted according to the new view?
•  The many new pretexts to use eminent domain today.
• These include “the promotion of esthetic values” as one of the reasons to take property by eminent domain.
•  A common modern reason for using eminent domain:  to get rid of lower and middle income taxpayers and bring in wealthier people who will pay more taxes.
•  Overspending of city budgets as the problem leading to the growing abuse of eminent domain.
•  Eminent domain as social engineering.
• " Just compensation"?
• The distortion of the concept of “market value”. 
• What does labeling a property as “blighted” do to its “market value”?
• Prodos’s blighted tights.
•  A couple of companies notorious for getting the government to take property for their use.
•  Other companies who have gotten land through eminent domain.
•  In what state is this abuse the worst in the USA?
•  What is being done to stop about eminent domain abuse?
• The Poletown taking. 
• The court reverses its decision after the town was demolished. 
• A benchmark for eminent domain actions to be overturned.
•  Why might it be that the wind is shifting in the lower courts?
• Will the Supreme Court come to its senses?

Guest: Joe Wright
New Yorker, activist and campaigner for private property rights in the USA.
Joe is also involved in a campaign to rebuild the World Trade Center to at least its previous glory and has, for several years, been a key project leader for the New York Celebrate Capitalism™ campaign.



Links
Links are offered for study purposes,
not necessarily as an endorsement.

• Eminent Domain Resource Center
  Enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of all 50 states is the power of eminent domain, which allows the government to take private property for a “public use” and requires the payment of just compensation for the taking ... But the definition of "public use" has gradually expanded over time. Originally constrained to projects like roads, bridges and public buildings, local governments are increasingly willing to use the power of eminent domain to achieve all sorts of public policy goals, and eminent domain has become a primary tool for promoting urban development.
  
  
• http://www.rppi.org/KeloAmicusFinal.pdf
  Is the seizure of non-blighted private property a “public
  use” permitted under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause
  where the government intends to transfer the land to private
  businesses in the hope that building private homes and offices
  will stimulate the local economy?
  
  
• http://www.castlecoalition.org
  The Court said it’s perfectly OK, under the U.S. Constitution, to take your home or business and give it to a politically connected private developer because that developer might be able to produce more taxes and more jobs off of your land.
  
  
• Australian Compulsory Land Acquisition Law
  The Commonwealth is able to compulsorily acquire land or an interest in land anywhere in Australia for public purposes.  The Commonwealth can also obtain property by negotiated agreement.  An owner who is willing to sell can ask to have the land acquired by the compulsory process to be assured of the protection of the Act when this process is followed.
  
  
• Institute for Justice
  On July 19, 2004, the Institute for Justice petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear one of the most important property rights cases in the past 50 years ... Kelo v. New London puts the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court in the clearest possible terms: Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to take property from one private party in order to give it to another private party because the new owner might produce more profit and more taxes for the City from the land?
  
  
• FindLaw.com
  The Supreme Court Hears an Important Constitutional Case That Asks If Private Property Is Truly Taken For "Public Use" When It Is Given to a Private Developer
  
  
• Top 10 Abuses of Eminent Domain
  Eminent domain is the power of government to force people from their family homes, to destroy their businesses. It is a despotic power, and America.s Founders placed limits on the condemnation power in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Governments may condemn only for .public use,. as well as paying just compensation. All 50 state constitutions also limit condemnations to those for public use. Yet government increasingly uses the eminent domain power to condemn property for privateuses. Acting more like real estate agents than public servants, government agencies form unholy alliances with developers in order to force the rightful owners off of their property.

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