BIG REVOLT AGAINST EMINENT DOMAIN

[Sadly absent from this revolt has been liberal Democrats]

JOHN M. BRODER, NY TIMES - In a rare display of unanimity that cuts
across partisan and geographic lines, lawmakers in virtually every
statehouse across the country are advancing bills and constitutional
amendments to limit use of the government's power of eminent domain to
seize private property for economic development purposes. The measures
are in direct response to the United States Supreme Court's 5-to-4
decision last June in a landmark property rights case from Connecticut,
upholding the authority of the City of New London to condemn homes in an
aging neighborhood to make way for a private development of offices,
condominiums and a hotel. It was a decision that one justice, who had
written for the majority, later all but apologized for.

The reaction from the states was swift and heated. Within weeks of the
court's decision, Texas, Alabama and Delaware passed bills by
overwhelming bipartisan margins limiting the right of local governments
to seize property and turn it over to private developers. Since then,
lawmakers in three dozen other states have proposed similar restrictions
and more are on the way, according to experts who track the issue.

The National League of Cities, which supports the use of eminent domain
as what it calls a necessary tool of urban development, has identified
the issue as the most critical facing local governments this year. The
league has called upon mayors and other local officials to lobby
Congress and state legislators to try to stop the avalanche of bills to
limit the power of government to take private property for presumed
public good. . .

Seldom has a Supreme Court decision sparked such an immediate
legislative reaction, and one that scrambles the usual partisan lines.
Condemnation of the ruling came from black lawmakers representing
distressed urban districts, from suburbanites and from Western
property-rights absolutists who rarely see eye to eye on anything.
Lawmakers from Maine to California have introduced dozens of bills in
reaction to the ruling, most of them saying that government should never
seize private homes or businesses solely to benefit a private developer,
no matter what compensation is paid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/politics/21reclassify.html?hp&ex=
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