kelo

Kelo and the MSM
The Supreme Court recently upheld decades old law that allows government to take private property for public use, if the property owner is paid just compensation. The media, playing on the fears of those that it expects to contribute to its ratings (not unlike local news coverage of every robbery and abduction), decided to utterly lie about the holding and precedent of US takings law.

A lawyer friend, and land use expert deeply familiar with constitutional issues involved in the takings clause, writes this:

The case really changed little in the law. The plaintiffs were in effect trying to get the court to overrule Berman v. Parker, the 1954 case allowing the use of eminent domain for urban redevelopment -- condemning all property within a blighted area and then transferring title to private parties for redevelopment (a principle followed in a even broader context in a 1984 case from Hawaii). The urban renewal program certainly had some major problems with how it was carried out in some cities, but the legal principle that this is a "public use" is long standing, though long contested by the property rights crowd.

Much of the media treatment of the decision was abysmal. NBC's report last night said this was a major and new expansion of govt authority to take your home for any reason whenever it wanted. Clearly they hadn't bothered to read the opinion, only the press releases from the plaintiffs who lost. The majority and concurrence make it abundantly clear that there must be a comprehensive plan, a general public need being addressed, and not being employed simply to benefit a single private party.
Whether one thinks such use of govt power is wise or not (and I would be in the camp that sometimes it is, sometimes it is not, it all depends on the specific facts of the case), the decision is far from what its opponents and most of the mainstream media have portrayed it. Unfortunately a lot of folks confuse the policy question (should govt be doing this type of thing and under what circumstances) with the constitutional one.

There are also some interesting undercurrents of judicial activism and deference to legislative judgment as to where to draw lines (e.g., O'Connor saying the court can decide it is ok to condemn land for a privately-owned sports arena but not for an economic development project, while Stephens says that distinction amongst the scope of public purposes is best left to the legislature acting within broad constitutional limits), but that is for another day.

And he's right. More on the activism bit later.