Junto Boys

THE DISTURBING JUDICIARY

Writing for the court's majority in Thursday's ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens said local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community. States are within their rights to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened, he said.

"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," Stevens wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

"It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area," he said.

Finally a local issue that John Paul Stevens can support -- the seizure or private land to fund more socialism. Our constitution is pretty short and Stevens has found all sorts of things in the document by implication. But he can't see protecting property. Have you seen Wild River (1960) with Montgomery Clift? Clift plays a depression era govt. man come to kick people off their Tennessee Island so they can damn the river for electricity. The movie supported the idea for the common good, and you can follow the logic. But the problem with grand plans about helping people is that eventually those plans only help the politicians and in this case rich developers.

O'Connor gets it right.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

The Case

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."

Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.

The Gloating socialists

Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, a former mayor and city council member who voted in favor of eminent domain, said the decision "means a lot for New London's future."

"I am just so pleased to know that what we did was right," he said. "We can go ahead with development now."

What if we built a public housing complex for polticians in New London? It would look just like any other inner city project. When someone was elected we'd take their property for public use and make them live close together. They could buy a house of their own only when their time as a leader was served.

What better way to know whether these bums support the public good other than make them suffer to provide it. There is something ugly about taking somebody else's property for the public good without offering your own.

THE HUMAN COST

The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.

Facism!

During the filibuster fight we saw a lot of hand wringing about the tradition of the Senate. Well Mr. Byrd, well Mr. Reid, well Ms. Clinton the tradition of private property goes back much further. Where's the hand wringing now you bargain basement Bolsheviks?

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