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House Registers Strong Disapproval of Supreme Court Ruling
(CNSNews.com) - The House of Representatives can't undo a troubling Supreme Court ruling, but it can -- and did -- send a message to the states. On Thursday, the House voted 365-33 to condemn the court's Kelo v. City of New London ruling that allows the government to take private property for "economic development." Private homes may be turned over to private commercial developers with "just compensation" -- even if homeowners object, the court said. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution specifically states that "private property" shall not "be taken for public use without just compensation." The court's ruling expands the concept of eminent domain beyond "public use."The resolution (H. Res. 340) expressing lawmakers' disapproval of the Kelo ruling was sponsored by Rep. Phil Gingry (R-Ga.), and one lawmaker called it a first step toward restoring basic private property rights. "The unchangeable principle of politics, morality, and common sense is that what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours," Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said. "What the Court decided last week was that what's mine is not really mine, and what's yours is not really yours -- that, in fact, private property only exists as a political expedient, a psychological contrivance wholly subject to the government's whims." A number of critics, including Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas, have warned that the Kelo decision will leave the poor, the elderly, and racial minorities most vulnerable to losing property to the government, and DeLay agreed: "Those people with the least economic and political power -- with the least means to fight back and the most need for government protection of their God-given rights -- have been told by the Supreme Court that while property rights are sacred, some people's property rights are more sacred than others'." "It is not a debatable ideological overreach, but a universally deplorable assault of the rights of man," DeLay said. "The Court's Kelo decision will go down in history as a travesty," he concluded. In addition to the resolution, legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate to limit federal funding for cities and municipalities that use eminent domain to seize property for economic development. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) introduced the House bill, and he said he expects the House Judiciary Committee to consider it later this year. "To give legislative force to this resolution, today I introduced H.R. 3135, the "Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005. This bipartisan bill will help restore the property rights of all Americans that the Supreme Court took away last week," Sensenbrenner said. Rep. John Conyners, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, is the lead Democratic cosponsor, and 64 lawmakers already have pledged their support, Sensenbrenner said. Like a bill introduced last week in the U.S. Senate, the House bill would prevent the federal government from using economic development as a justification for taking privately owned property. It also would prohibit any state or municipality from doing so whenever federal funds are involved with the project for which eminent domain authority is exercised. "American taxpayers should not be forced to contribute in any way to the abuse of government power," Sensenbrenner said. He noted that farmers, ranchers, and religious organizations all are threatened by the Kelo ruling, which might allow developers to seize their property for economic development. Sensenbrenner said his bill -- H.R. 3135 - will "assure the American people that we will not allow churches, homes, farms, and other private property to be bulldozed in abusive land grabs that solely benefit private individuals whose only claim to that land is that their greater wealth will increase tax revenues."
Posted by: Steve 2005-07-01 |
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