HoustonChronicle.com - Lawmaker wants Texans safe from home seizure

Back when I was in school we learned that "eminent domain" was essentially an exemption to the market economy for governments. It gave governments the ability to acquire land for "public use" without allowing the landowner to set their own price. But "public use", to my recollection, meant that the government ended up owning the land. Roads was always the example.

But in George W's "ownership society" as enforced by his pet justices, it seems that "public use" really means "someone with more money wants your land so get off it". In other words actually allowing the market economy to work is dependent on connections and pocket depth.

I'm with Justice O'Connor on this one and I applaud San Antonio Representative Corte's stance. I hope he follows through.

HoustonChronicle.com - Lawmaker wants Texans safe from home seizure

The Supreme Court ruled against a group of property owners in New London, Conn., who challenged a city plan to demolish their riverfront homes to make way for offices, a hotel and other commercial buildings.

Justice John Paul Stevens, in the majority opinion, said such projects are within the scope of a clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution that authorizes condemning property for "public use."

Stevens wrote that promoting economic development, the stated goal of the New London project, "is a traditional and long accepted governmental function, and there is no principled way of distinguishing it from the other public purposes the court has recognized," such as taking land for roads, parks or libraries.

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the majority's interpretation of "public use" was so broad that "the specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."