Hands off our homes
A Supreme Court ruling that allows the government to seize private property has set off a fierce backlash that may yet be as potent as the anti-abortion movement
"Seven days later [after the Kelo v. New London SCOTUS decision], by a ten-to-one margin, the Republican House of Representatives passed a motion disagreeing with the court. A constitutional amendment to overrule Kelo is before the House, while a bill that would have a similar effect is before the Senate. Delaware, Alabama and Texas have already passed laws restricting the government's power to grab private property. Legislators from two dozen other states have either proposed similar bills, or promised to do so.quot;
….
"Since Kelo, the law may have shifted in favour of the men with the bulldozers, but public opinion has swung sharply the other way. Polls suggest that 90% of Americans disapprove of the kind of seizures allowed by Kelo. Such is the anger that some developers say they are shunning even the kind of eminent-domain seizures that would have been legal before Kelo."
This decision has local implications, too.
"Property-owners fighting against local government have been buoyed by the backlash. In the town of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, for example, a small group of businessfolk received letters last year informing them that their shops were to be demolished to make way for a new development including apartments and a parking garage."
….
"The local government had declared the area 'blighted'. But a brief walkabout reveals that it is no more blighted than the potato you ate for lunch. A couple of shop fronts are a bit tatty, but otherwise it looks fine. Indeed, the district has been officially designated 'historic', since much of it was built in the 19th century. The condemned properties include a second-hand shop that supports the local hospital, a club for veterans of foreign wars and Scott Mahan's stationery shop, which has been in his family since 1926."
BTW, Ardmore is in Lower Merion Township, which was founded by Quakers, some of whom are my ancestors. It's a tenuous tie, perhaps, but preserving PA and family history is important to me. So is sticking up for underdogs.
A lot of the groups making a fuss about Kelo, like Grassfire, are conservative in nature, and the article points out similarities to the Roe v. Wade ruling. I don't think this should be dismissed as a right wingnut issue, however. The Left ought to be more interested that it seems to be. I can't recall a single alert or petition coming from the ACLU, MoveOn, or any of the other myriad liberal organizations I get mail from (and I get a lot). Why is that?
Average Americans of all political leanings seem to be outraged by this decision, but the leadership seems to be asleep at the switch. This decision will benefit large corporations and hurt small businesses and individual landowners. Joe Voter stands to lose the most from this ruling. The problem is, he didn't vote for the folks who made the decision. They were appointed by presidents and confirmed by his senators. The legislative branch is supposed to serve as a check on the powers of the executive and judicial branches. It's time to hold our representatives accountable and impress upon them the importance of supporting an amendment to reverse Kelo. To do that, we're going to need help from grassroots organizations from all parts of the spectrum.
Wake up, Left! Your country needs you!
“Back in the day, when my wardrobe consisted almost exclusively of tie-dye and I had my hair long and walked around with a peace symbol necklace around my neck (this was, oddly enough, not more than a decade or so ago), I was friends with a kid named Eric Williams. Eric was a year older than me, was a classic rock fan like me, and he was so pale that when he stood in the sunlight, you got kind of sonogram picture of his heart beating through his chest. Seriously. I think we met in gym class during that first week of school when the gym teachers sat everyone down on the bleachers and paced back and forth, sizing up who was going to be a good gym student, who would be kind of a whiny weakling, and who would just generally not buy into the fact that gym was an integral part of their academic studies. Eric and me…we were in that last group. Or so I remember.”
“Anyway, years passed and as happens, I lost touch with Eric. I dated his sister Katie for a good chunk of my senior year of high school, became friends with her, then became sort of not friends with her, then became really good friends with her, and now have the honor of calling her daughter my niece. It’s been kind of a saga is what I’m getting at, here. The last time I saw Eric was at Katie’s wedding, and he had grown considerably from this skinny little pale kid into a not so terribly skinny or pale adult (Katie did this, too…round about her twenties she gained the ability to tan…I think the melatonin gene must just be a late bloomer in this family) who can dance like…well, like I will never be able to dance in my life. Anyway, he and I didn’t get to chat much, but I was impressed with him nonetheless.”
I didn’t attend BlogFest’s 1 and 2, but last night I attended