Introduction of the Private Property Protection Act of 2009
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides in part that "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.''
On June 23, 2005, a majority of the Supreme Court chose to close its eyes to the Constitution and our Nation's rich history of protecting private property rights. The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Kelo vs. City of New London, held that "economic development" can be a "public use" under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause justifying the government's taking of private property. The Court held that the creation of a more lucrative tax base can justify the government's taking of private property from one small homeowner and giving it to a large corporation for a private research facility.
The Kelo decision interpreted government taking for "public use" to mean no more than "public purpose." Put simply, this decision meant that government would have an almost unlimited ability to seize private property--homes, churches, synagogues, and thriving businesses--and hand it over to private companies so long as they convince the local land authority that the project will yield economic benefit for a community that has been arbitrarily deemed "distressed." Private companies and developers all over the country went into a frenzy to file project site plans when Kelo was decided. They knew that they would be able to make huge amounts of money so long as they produced public benefit--this was a ridiculous over-expansion of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
As the dissent in Kelo pointed out, "To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings 'for public use' is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property--and thereby effectively to delete the words 'for public use' from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment." The dissent made clear that, as a result of the majority's decision, "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."
The bottom line is that local and Federal governments must take every landowner as a special case because the people who own the properties that are subject to economic redevelopment play just as big a role as the projected revenues that the local jurisdiction hopes to bring in with a new development. Just because you are poor does not mean that your right to private property is worth any less than that of a wealthy developer.
The Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2009 will restore the property rights of all Americans that the Supreme Court changed with the Kelo decision. This legislation would prevent the Federal Government or any authority of the Federal Government from using economic development as a justification for exercising its power of eminent domain. This bill would also discourage States and localities from abusing their eminent domain power by denying States or localities that commit such abuse all Federal economic development funds for a period of two years. This bill is substantially similar to H.R. 4128, legislation that passed the House in the 109th Congress by an overwhelmingly vote of 376-38, nearly a 10-1 margin, but unfortunately, was never enacted.
I am looking forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to protect the private property rights of every American and hope they will join me in sponsoring the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2009.
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