Eminent Domain Abuse?
In an AJC story on the growing DOT deficit in Georgia Jim Galloway noticed that the department has been seizing rights-of-way to no purpose:
In one case, for a project on Ga. 316 and Ga. 81 in 1999, DOT told a man it needed land that he had bought less than six months before, intending to build a gas station.
It usually takes years for a project to arrive at the construction stage, and the man asked DOT if it would let him build his station and make what profit he could until the agency was ready to build its ramps.
DOT refused, saying the project was “imminent,” and condemned his land.
“Eight years later, GDOT continues to have no formal construction plans for the project and the project is not on GDOT’s Long Range Program,” according to the audit.
Do we think Georgia is the only state where this happens?
13 Responses to “Eminent Domain Abuse?”
The Supreme Court has consistently eroded the rights of the average citizen to own property, subverting it to the whims of local and state governments. It happens everywhere and is only getting worse. I am never surprised at the ridiculous things that happen to people when eminent domain is invoked.
Sadly the only lesson that can be taken from these situations is that if it happens to you, only bother to lawyer up early on and only so you can hold out long enough to get a good offer from the government, then take the money and run.. because your odds of winning in court are nil.
[...] Eminent Domain Abuse? [...]
wasn't the taking of Pole Town (in detroit, i believe) another particularly notorious example (tho further back in time)? at the time, it was the largest polish community outside of poland, if i'm not mistaken.
A candidate should hit on this, I think. While the outrage at eminent domain has calmed down a bit lately, it's not that far below the surface. It's also an issue that isn't clearly conservative or liberal but grabs a peculiar cross-section of voters.
It would be interesting to see which candidate wanted to champion this cause. Kelo s. New London should have been a lesson to us all. Rhenquist, Scalia, Thomas and O'Conner (considered by some to be an odd matchup) were the ones arguing against that abomination, while Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer passed it. It was the seal of approval to replace the idea of “public use” with “public purpose” which neatly re-wrote the constittion in one fell swoop. Which side would Obama and McCain take on this? The public howls against it, so who takes which side?
well, from what i know of the (common?) law, eminent domain has been a power of the state since way back. wouldn't a solution to this most likely come out of a legislative body?
Actually the principle of eminent domain is Federal in nature and comes from the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation
Such questions were what allowed the case of Kelo to be taken to the supremes and for them to accept the case rather than tossing it back to Connecticut on the grounds that it was outside the pervue of the Feds as a state matter.
Kelo famously replaced “public use” with the new term of “public purpose.”
Actually the principle of eminent domain is Federal in nature and comes from the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation
Such questions were what allowed the case of Kelo to be taken to the supremes and for them to accept the case rather than tossing it back to Connecticut on the grounds that it was outside the pervue of the Feds as a state matter.
Kelo famously replaced “public use” with the new term of “public purpose.”
okay, makes sense. but is the power to condemn property invested in the state and granted by the feds? isn't it usually state governments or their proxies that exercise it? if i recall, there was a state only a short while ago passed an act that limited its powers of eminent domain.
from what i've found online, it looks like originally a power of any sovereign body, but the 5th amendment incorporated it into the constitution so as to allow for those cases where the federal sovereign chose to exercise that power.
Definitely exercised by the states, not the feds, except in a few extreme cases I found of people “squatting” on federal property declared as a fed wilderness area. But, of course, the appeals process has always held beyond State to the feds for questions if challenged since it is inherited from the Fifth. Absolutely true, what you say, though, that the state is the entity empowered to actually *exercise* it in most cases. The Kelo case was only remarkable for the precedent it set in allowing other states in the future to claim the public purpose clause.
here's the wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain
funny, i had no idea that eminent domain could be exercised outside of “real” property; i took a couple classes in public lands law, guess real estate is kind of the focus there.
It's a valid entry from what I've learned, and could even apply to things such as food and temporary shelter (which crosses over into the whole harboring troops thing) but in the moden era, I think we would have to say that real property accounts for all but a few items.