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PERSPECTIVE
- August 2005 by Pat Freibert The Abuse of Government Power The recent 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision on Kelo vs. New London emphatically okayed government seizure of private property, not for public use but to hand over to private developers. This outrageous decision astonishingly changes how government can now approach the taking of private property. No longer will eminent domain depend on the caveat of public use as stated in the constitution. Rewriting the constitution, the justices expanded the power of the New London, Connecticut government to take private land when the resulting taking offers more tax revenue to the local government. “Public use” condemnation has always been constitutionally sanctioned for such needs as highways, bridges, schools, etc. Never before has the court sanctioned government seizure of property for the purpose of handing it over to private developers for their profit and to increase local tax coffers. Columnist Thomas Sowell observes that the court ruled that local politicians can take your property away and turn it over to someone else just by using the magic words “public purpose.” He asks sobering questions: “What are these Constitutional rights supposed to protect the citizens from if not the government? How many homeowners can afford to litigate their claims all the way up and down the judicial food chain?” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, in her strong dissent to the majority opinion said, “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 firm with a factory.” In the New London case, a woman having her property confiscated lives in a home dating to 1893. Other homes in the middle class neighborhood have been in the same families for generations. Another graphic illustration of abusive government power to take private property is an 80-year-old Washington State woman who was removed from her home of 55 years “to expand a sewer plant.” Then the city sold her property to an auto dealership. In Kansas, a city took a used car lot by eminent domain, then turned it over to a new car dealer next door who had tried unsuccessfully to buy the property from the owner. The bottom line of the U.S. Supreme Court’s New London decision is a serious expansion of government power to take property, and a serious limit on citizens’ rights to their property. The mere wish of government to increase revenue can now trump a citizen’s right to his/her property. Kentucky is one of several states with a bit more protection for property owners, requiring that houses or neighborhoods be blighted or deteriorated to be condemned, affecting primarily those of modest means. However, even this requirement has not kept the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government from continuing its takeover attempt against a privately owned water company - not because Kentucky-American Water Company is blighted or deteriorated, and not because it fails to efficiently deliver a safe and reasonably priced product but because the local government wants the company’s revenue and does not like its owner. Constitutions are written to limit and define the powers of governments and assure citizen’s rights. Since it is the very nature of government to grow, and to grow more powerful, constitutional roadblocks to such expansive power were recognized as necessary by the framers. “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”—James Madison, 1788. Pat Freibert is a former Kentucky state representative from Lexington. |
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