BREAKING: Supreme Court Rules Against Property Rights Absolutists

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 23, 2005 · 7:55 AM PDT

2005/06/23 · 07:55

The Supreme Court today ruled in a major takings case, Kelo v. New London.

The city of New London had used its eminent domain power to condemn a large privately-owned piece of land, giving it to a private development corporation for the purposes of economic development.

The Court ruled 5-4 that though the city was giving the taken property to a private entity, it still qualfied as a "public use" under the Fifth Amendment and could be taken as long as just compensation is given.

As first glace, you may think that giving private homeowner property to a private corporations is a bad thing. And it very well might be in many cases. However, if the Court had ruled differently and NOT allowed local governments to do this, it would have been a disaster for local governments to build for the community (including when the purpose is to help the environment, build affordable housing, create jobs, etc.). It would have sacrificed needed community power at the hands of the sort of property-rights extremism frequently displayed by right-wing libertarian types.

I'll have a lot more on this in my weekly Supreme Court Roundup, which I'll have out by tomorrow evening.

Update [2005-6-23 11:10:52 by Hoyapaul]: As I mention in the comments, here is the lineup for this decision:

FOR THE MAJORITY:
Stevens
Breyer
Ginsburg
Kennedy
Souter

DISSENTING:
O'Connor
Rehnquist
Scalia
Thomas

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

BREAKING: Supreme Court Rules Against Property Rights Absolutists

Comments are closed on this story.