Eminent Domain

A man's home is his castle................................................unless government covets the property.

Cities around the country are using the eminent domain (ED) provision of our law to take private property for questionable (in my view) public use. The latest example comes from Olympia, Washington. The city wants to force owners to sell their property so the city can create another public park. Public parks are great but should cities use ED and their coercive government powers against owners who do not want to sell?

So far the courts -all the way to SCOTUS - have ruled in favor of the governments. A recent ruling by the highest court in the land supported a Connecticut taking where a city condemned private property in order to take it so the city could in turn hand the property over to a private developer. It was not taken for a public highway, nor for a hospital, nor for a school, but so a developer who coveted the property could build a private commercial business. The city's rationale was that the new development would raise lots more tax revenue. Therefore, the public good was enhanced.

The Connecticut case led to a group filing ED papers in New Hampshire against Justice Souter's home. Souter wrote the SCOTUS opinion that agreed with the taking. It seems fair to me that if one person's property is subjected to ED, then why not subject Justice Souter's property to the same standard. After all, justice is for ALL of us, right?

A man's home is his castle...................................is meaningless these days!