President Bush Blocks Federal Eminent Domain Abuses
Remember the Kelo case? Big government took private property for the benefit of other private citizens.
This is a vampire still in need of a permanent death. The President's order today is a good start.
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June 26, 2006
Bush Issues Executive Order on Eminent Domain
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Last Friday marked the anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous Kelo decision.
It has been one year since the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion that shocked the country and attacked the fundamental American doctrine, "A man's home is his castle."
Now the backlash is under way.
President Bush marked the anniversary of the Kelo v. New London ( Conn.) decision by issuing an executive order barring the federal government from taking private land for someone else's private use.
Specifically, Bush's order said "it is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property" by "limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public."
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Bush's order specifically requires agencies that answer to the president to make sure, when they exercise eminent domain, that people's property is taken only for a public use, such as a road or airport, rather than what Kelo allows — the taking of private property for any use, including commercial development.
"Kelo interpreted the Fifth Amendment to allow state and local governments to condemn private property for the benefit of private developers," Hausknecht said, "to build privately owned improvements on that property for the hope of a public benefit, such as a higher tax base."
The ruling, cited by family advocates as an egregious example of judicial activism, sprung from a 1997 case in which the city of New London, Conn., allowed the New London Development Corp. to seize Susette Kelo's entire neighborhood for a shopping mall. Kelo and some of her neighbors sued — and lost.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, applauded Bush for taking executive action.
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http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0041033.cfm
This was a brief quote from a much longer article.
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"We did a study from 1998 to 2002, which showed more than 10,000 instances of eminent domain abuse around the country," Anderson told CitizenLink. "But in the last year, since Kelo, over 5,700 properties are being threatened or condemned for private development — that's nearly triple the yearly average."
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Check it out.