The Arrogance of Judicial Tyranny
Frank Salvato
July 2, 2005 I don’t think that I would be too off the mark if I said the Founding Fathers and their compatriots would have stormed the Supreme Court Building, torches and pitchforks in hand, looking for the five justices who championed the Kelo v. City of New London ruling. I have no doubt they would have found the court’s decision tyrannical, the ruling more consistent with the court of the King than those charged with upholding the Constitution of free men.
The ruling is so atrocious that I felt the need to contact the justices. But while I was paging through the US Supreme Court’s website it became apparent, the justices don’t feel the need to afford “We the People” access to them. In fact, the only email opportunity on the entire webpage was to let them know of technical difficulties.
The last I checked the Supreme Court is indeed a branch of our government. So, it is quite disturbing that the justices make it next to impossible to contact them. Could it be that the Judicial Branch of our government is so arrogant that they will not be bothered by those for whom they work?
To summarize the ruling while avoiding legalese, the Supreme Court (in particular Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens) decided that local governments can seize private property in favor of private development for the sole purpose of generating tax revenue. They contend that generating tax revenue is a “common good.” To be fair they also said that individual states could restrict that power and at least 10 already do.
In today’s political climate it takes something quite remarkable for Republicans and Democrats to come together. But as I navigated the halls of the Longworth and Rayburn buildings on Capitol Hill last week it was obvious that the Supreme Court’s decision had left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, and in Washington DC that’s a hard thing to do!
This ruling stems directly from socialist ideology. It allows local governments to redistribute wealth as they see fit under the pretense that it benefits the masses. This is about as far away from the idea of liberty as one can get.
Picture the home in which you were brought up. Your Mother and Father inherited the house and the land from your Grandparents and they from their parents. The neighborhood has changed over the years but they still have a nice, well maintained house on a nice piece of land. It overlooks a beautiful scene as do the properties and houses of their neighbors. Throughout your life you have always expected to live there in your later years and hoped to one day pass that land on to your children upholding a tradition into the fourth generation.
But wait, the town in which your parents’ house is located had an election and the new mayor and board want to make something of this sleepy little town. They are approached by a mega-developer with visions of a nice resort hotel overlooking a beautiful scene complete with a golf course, restaurants and a spa. The point that wins the support of the town’s elected officials is that the resort would generate tax revenue which, overwhelmed by the dollar signs, they could then spend at will.
Now, I’ll give you three guesses as to where that beautiful scenic view is located. That’s right, the town is now looking at the property that sits under your parents’ house and the houses of your parents’ neighbors. Thanks to the 2005 Supreme Court town officials can now take your parents land even if they don’t want to sell. In fact, the town will most likely confiscate their property paying a fraction of its worth for compensation.
This scenario illustrates the redistribution of wealth from your parents and from your family – from you – to the people of your parents’ town via tax revenue. The profits the new property owners and wealthy developers accrue from what used to be your parents’ land only adds insult to injury. It is no less than theft. You get a pittance while big business and the newly defined “common good” profit at your expense. How very socialist.
Local governments are going to manipulate this decision to the furthest extent possible. Already mayors in major metropolitan areas are maneuvering to attain large tracts of private property under the new definition of eminent domain. And they will snatch that land whether the owners wants to sell it or not. They will seize the land, “legally” depriving the land owner of personal wealth, courtesy of the US Supreme Court.
I will go out on a limb and suggest that the Kennedy compound at Hyannisport and David Souter’s home in New Hampshire will escape the socialist redistribution of wealth. They have enough money to buy the lawyers to circumvent being lumped in with the rest of us mere taxpayers. Still, I would love for the Hyannisport building inspector to slap a “red tag” on Kennedy’s front door so the next strip mall to house a Chucky Cheese could be built.
THOMAS SOWELL: SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
It's last rites for property rights
You may own your own home and expect to live there the rest of your life. But keep your bags packed, because the Supreme Court has decreed that local politicians can take your property away and turn it over to someone else, just by using the magic words "public purpose."
We're not talking about the government taking your home to build a reservoir or a highway for the benefit of the public. The Constitution always allowed government to take private property for "public use," provided the property owner was paid "just compensation."
What the latest Supreme Court decision does with verbal sleight-of-hand is change the Constitution's requirement of "public use" to a more expansive power to confiscate private property for whatever is called "public purpose," including turning it over to another private party.
In this case, the private parties include a hotel, restaurants, shops and a pharmaceutical company.
These are not public uses, as the Constitution requires, but are said to serve "public purposes," as courts have expanded the concept beyond the language of the Fifth Amendment, reflecting those "evolving" circumstances so dear to judges who rewrite the Constitution.
No sane person has ever denied that circumstances change or that laws need to change to meet new circumstances. But that is different from saying that judges are the ones to decide which laws must change and in what way at what time.
What are legislatures for except to legislate? What is the separation of powers for except to keep powers separate?
When the 5-4 Supreme Court majority "rejected any literal requirement that condemned property be put into use for the general public" because of the "evolving needs of society," it violated the Constitutional separation of powers on which the American system of government is based.
When the court majority referred to its "deference to legislative judgments" about the taking of property, it was as disingenuous as it was inconsistent. If Constitutional rights of individuals are to be waved aside because of "deference" to another branch of government, then the citizens may as well not have Constitutional rights.
What are these rights to protect the citizens from, if not the government?
This very court, just days before, showed no such deference to a state's law permitting the execution of murderers who were not yet 18. Such selective "deference" amounts to judicial policy-making rather than the carrying out of the law.
Surely the justices must know that politicians whose careers have been built on their ability to spin words can always create words that claim to find "public purpose" in what they are doing.
How many private homeowners can afford to litigate such claims?
The best that can be said for the Supreme Court majority's opinion is that it follows -- and extends -- certain judicial precedents. But, as Justice Clarence Thomas said in dissent, these "misguided lines of precedent" must be reconsidered, so as to "return to the original meaning of the Public Use Clause" in the Constitution.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's dissent points out that the five Justices in the majority -- Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, Stevens and Kennedy -- "wash out any distinction between private and public use of property." As a result, she adds: "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory."
In other words, politicians can replace your home with whatever they expect will pay more taxes than you do -- and call their money grab a "public purpose."