Life, Liberty, but Property... Not So Much.

Here’s a dirty little secret: in college, I studied the dirty art of politics. For a while it was my passion. Specifically, my favorite aspect of government was always Constitutional Law. One of my stupid little games I always like to play is to guess how the court is going to decide on issues and which justices would go which way. It’s really not all that hard.

Yet this case through me for a loop.

In, for me at least, a surprising 5-4 decision the Supremes decided it was just fine and dandy for local municipalities to seize private land for public use, and act commonly referred to as Eminent Domain, for private economic development.

Simply put, city hall can force you to sell your property to them for a "fair price" in order to make room for a Supermarket, office building or even just more expensive homes. While eminent domain in the past has specifically been used for projects with a specific public purpose, like building roads, now the only "public purpose" is increasing their tax revenues.

In my words, this doesn't pass the smell test. In fact, it just plain stinks.

While I haven't yet read the whole decision basically the Justices said that local officials, not judges know best what economic projects would best benefit the community. What I say to that is "who cares?" The Supremes are not ruling on whether or not any specific project is economically viable, but whether the act is a violation of the right to property. The right that our own American Revolution was fought for. The Supreme Court does not need to consider whether the municipality was right in the belief that they would make more money with a another structure there, but whether it was that municipalities right to snatch someone's personal property from them. Local officials also may know better if certain types of inflammatory speech may negatively affect their community more so than federal judges. So are we going to allow Mayor Jones at City Hall to decide which type of speech should be free? I don't think so.

According to Justice John Paul Stephens "The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including -- but by no means limited to -- new jobs and increased tax revenue."

Again I would say that this point is moot, that the individual right to property out weighs the public purpose. The Supremes seem to give more weight recently to concepts over concrete. Basically, in order for municipalities to seize land, for me at least, there should be a concrete purpose, like building a new road or damn, and even then all other less intrusive avenues should be considered. Yet, here the Supremes seem to limit personal freedoms for a conceptual public purpose, that business will contribute better to the community than private residences.

And this is not even taking the social issues or potential for abuse into consideration. In her dissent Justice Sandra Day O'Connor states "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

What does it mean if a township decides that the low cost housing structures are not bringing in enough revenue and decide it serves a public purpose to replace them with luxury condominiums.

Surprisingly, the often reactionary trio of Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist joined with O'Connor in her dissent. The more socially progessive judges were in favor of the ruling.