Supreme Court ok's government-imposed land redistribution

Yesterday, a divided US Supreme Court authorized government-imposed land redistribution in a controversial and much-followed ruling.

The case involved a Connecticut municipality's use of eminent domain. Eminent domain is a process by which the government can take private land for public use, provided the owners are compensated. Typically, this is done so that roads or bridges or other public infrastructure can be built.

Eminent domain is actually authorized by the US Constitution's 5th Amendment which concludes: nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The key question in this case was the definition of the phrase 'public use.'

The town of New London, CT wanted to use eminent domain on a number of properties so it could pave the way for a large private commercial development complex including a riverfront hotel, health club and offices that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.

This case is an excellent example of why our democracy is constitutionally limited. Or at least in theory.

Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, who as a city council member approved the development, said, "I am charged with doing what's best for the 26,000 people that live in New London. That to me was enacting the eminent domain process designed to revitalize a city ... with nowhere to go."

In other words, the government can seize your home if it's supposedly in the best economic interests of a majority of your fellow citizens.

In fact, the right to private property, like any other right, is utterly meaningless if it can be removed by a simple majority vote.

"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, in his majority opinion.

But is seizing the homes of ordinary, middle class folks to give to rich private developers a traditional and long accepted function of government? Perhaps in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, but I didn't think it was so here in the United States.

In dissent, [Justice Sandra Day] O'Connor criticized the majority for abandoning the conservative principle of individual property rights and handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled.

"The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," O'Connor wrote. "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."

This decision must confuse some conservatives. The Court trashed the whole concept of private property rights and ok'd government-imposed land redistributions but at least it wasn't 'activist.'

This is particularly relevant to my city. Right near our downtown hockey arena, there is a Burger King with an ugly sitting area in front of it. It is indeed a concerte eyesore. In fact, it's a reminder of the failed dream of a previous administration to build 'another Rockefeller Center' in the plaza. That area was razed several decades ago during the city's disastrous and misnamed 'urban renewal' program that destroyed so many historic buildings and erected blight in their place.

Now, some have floated the idea of eminent domaining the BK property for some new grandiose scheme to revive downtown. BK's owners don't want to sell the property.

Nevermind that the slow but steady progress our downtown has made in the last decade has been driven by small business owners, while the magic bullet approaches to big chains have fallen through.

I'm sure the region's big developers are salivating at the prospect, following the New London decision. My city's experience with disastrous magic bullet schemes in the last half century should give residents pause for thought. Making downtown more pedestrian friendly will do far more to help downtown shops, restaurants and museums than pie-in-the-sky nonsense like replacing BK with another Rockefeller Center or further money-sucking eyesores like a parking garage. Besides, if they can seize BK to give to someone richer simply because it's not fancy, schmancy enough for sophisticated tastes, then why can't they seize your home to do the same?


Update: The Green Party of the United States, the country's third largest and only major progressive party, has also come out with a statement denouncing the Supreme Court decision.