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Posted by tgl on 2005-06-23 17:02:18 +0000

Like I said, should have read it. All sits well with the world. A dangerous decision, I think. "Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. "

Posted by frame609 on 2005-06-23 17:08:44 +0000

Fuckin' Souter. He's off the Christmas Card list.

Posted by tgl on 2006-02-08 04:17:05 +0000

The good people of Weare are on Souter's list. The more I learn about the Kelo decision, the more at ease I am with it.

Posted by cdubrocker on 2006-02-08 14:10:05 +0000

It's great that the entire town was able to get in on the decision of what to do about Souter's house. But in how many towns or cities is this truly in all of the residents' hands, by referendum? Despite the general heinousness of the judges who dissented, from what I've heard of the details they're in the right on this one. I will have to learn more.

Posted by tgl on 2006-02-08 15:22:14 +0000

The judges who dissented from Kelo are the true activists here. They were deciding to ignore decades of settled law concerning how the government seizes land for eminent domain. The Constitution does not disallow it and the Legislature has not acted to constrain these types of takings. Until the Legislature acts, the activist Scalia and his ilk should constrain their opinions to interpreting existing laws instead of creating new ones. My understanding of Souter's land in Weare is that a referendum was specifically created (prompted by out-of-staters, not to mention out-of-Wearers) to take Souter's land. Which is not the way these takings generally occur.

Posted by cdubrocker on 2006-02-08 17:08:45 +0000

Good point about the activist nature of their dissent. I guess what I don't agree with is the law, then, more than the decision. My cynical side tells me that for every property truly seized in the best economic interest of a town, there will be property seized the put up a strip mall. Hopefully decent local minds will prevail in preventing the latter from happening.

Posted by tgl on 2006-02-08 18:33:26 +0000

Well, you can only have so many strip malls before the next strip mall becomes an economic burden to a town. How often does the government take property? Which reminds me of the other side of this argument: The same rational used to support takings by the government is also used to support why the federal government can do things like protect endangered species, or keep people from sullying their land with petro-chemicals.

Posted by cdubrocker on 2006-02-08 19:07:04 +0000

I found this and this rundown of various eminent domain cases which have been in the works. I don't necessarily think that eminent domain is a horrible thing (we'd have no interstate highway system today without it), it's the future of it that I wonder about. There was a piece I saw on 60 Minutes or some show like that which involved an eminent domain case which was still being decided. Some people in the neighborhood had agreed to sell, but there were a couple of holdouts who'd lived in the neighborhood for most of their lives, and couldn't imagine leaving. The neighborhood was definitely not blighted, maybe on the low-end of suburbia, but not trashy or anything. The town wanted a developer to build a luxury condocomplex surrounded by an upscale mall. It was a pretty sad story, but obviously not the story of every eminent domain case.