Kelo v New London is arguably the worst Supreme Court
decision of my life time still in effect. Citizens United is terrible too but
it mostly legimitized a system that was increasingly corrupt anyways.
The US Constitution permits the taking of “private property for public USE" with just compensation.This process was typically used to
obtain land to build highways, bridges, parks and other things the public has
access to. There have often been battles over what constitutes just
compensation but the principle of what constituted “public use” was pretty
clear.
The Kelo ruling threw this out and authorized eminent
domain to be used for the far more
nebulous reason of the public benefit. This is often invoked to justify giving
the land – or selling it at a pittance - to a private developer to build a
private structure because of the “public benefit” of greater tax revenue.
In other words, it opened the door for the government to
seize property and use it to further crony capitalism.
In this story, the city of Hartford, CT, seized land from a
developer who wanted to build a mixed-use structure adjacent to where a new
baseball stadium was being built. The city seized the property from one
developer and gave it to another developer.
