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Monday, January 23, 2006

Supreme Court Spectator

Here's a preview (by a few hours) of my article at The American Spectator, available to the broader public at midnight Eastern Time.

It discusses the Supreme Court's agenda after Alito and suggests taking aim at the Kelo vs. City of New London ruling which is taking takings to a level that most folks can't take.

Here, sample a smidgen:

...the piquant tale of Mr. Logan Darrow Clements. This man with the three cognomina may become more than a nominal cog in the historical battle to set the Supreme Court aright. In his low-key way he has taken aim at Kelo vs. City of New London. That disastrous decision of recent vintage allows municipalities to initiate takings of private property for the public advantage of enhancing the local tax base. This means that if The Donald convinces the city elders that he could build a revenue-generating casino right where your patio used to be, that putative benefit trumps your ownership. Your good deed will not go unpunished.

Mr. Clements has chosen a novel means of protest, one he compares to the Boston Tea Party. He has proposed to the sleepy New Hampshire burg of Weare that its most illustrious citizen, Justice David Souter, be evicted from his home to allow for construction of a hotel, the Lost Liberty Inn. On what grounds would it be built? On Souter's grounds. That is, the grounds of his vote with the majority in Kelo. Clements has already assembled the 25 signatures required to place his petition on the ballot in March: nine out of ten locals approached signed on the dotted line! Perhaps his idea is less dotty than it seemed.

3 comments:

Kathy Hutchins said...

I don't want to create skating rinks in Hell or anything, but.....I agree with Tlaloc. If the Court had found for plaintiffs in Kelo it would have been a significant break from previous takings jurisprudence. I'm glad that the suit was litigated, and I'm similarly glad that Mr. Clements is engaging in his delicious conservative political guerrilla theater, but the remedy for these offenses against justice lie with state legislatures, not the Supreme Court. Municipalities have no power that is not "loaned" to them by states, and the states can take it back anytime they want to. The court cases have been useful in shining light on these shameful deals, but it's now time for citizens to make their will felt in their respective statehouses.

Kathy Hutchins said...

From an economist's point of view, "just compensation" is hardly ever offered. Because if it was truly "just" -- in the economic sense of leaving the owner no worse off -- you wouldn't have to force the owner to accept it. The legislative remedy could just as easily be a reform of the meaning of "just compensation" as it could of "public use" -- since if the prospective buyers had to pay the current owners the true value they placed on the land, most of these deals wouldn't make economic sense.

Kathy Hutchins said...

Oh, I don't think Kelo was a slam dunk case, obviously -- it was 5-4 after all, and Justice Thomas's dissent made some powerful arguments that not only should Kelo prevail, but that a lot of takings precedent should be revisited. I suppose I should have just said that I wasn't surprised at the decision given recent history, and not left the impression that I thought the plaintiffs' case had no merit. Actually, I was surprised the vote was as close as it was, but then no one could ever tell what O'Connor would do on any given day.