TheBisch

I heard about the Supreme Court ruling on local government’s use of eminent domain the other day and I was going to go off on a nice long tirade about it.

Instead, Enerd, a reader and frequent commenter, is my guest blogger for the day:

As a property owner, I implore you to take a stand against the Supreme Court’s ridiculous, liberal ruling on eminent domain. In case you were distracted by the latest “missing white person” 24-hour coverage on the news networks, here is a link:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/23/news/fortune500/retail_eminentdomain/

In a nutshell, the ruling gives local governments the authority to condemn your property for development if they can generate more tax revenue from it.

This may not seem different than eminent domain in the past, but there is a new twist. Instead of public use being defined as parks, schools, fire stations, highways and such, now they can claim anything that generates more tax revenue is good for the public. Own a lot with one house? The government could make more with two houses on it. Have some property in a growing part of town, and not ready to sell? Too bad, a developer wants to build a shopping center and the city council wants the revenue.

Please take two minutes to send an email or a letter to your Senators and Representatives. You can find them by going here:

www.senate.gov
http://www.house.gov/htbin/zipfind

If this ruling stands, private investment in real estate will collapse. How can you expect a fair selling price when a developer has the “I’ll use eminent domain” card to play?

People will lose homes and their businesses for the development of strip malls. Is this America? When did we become more obsessed with increased tax revenue over the basic tenets of the Constitution - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Please take a stand on this and salvage what’s left of personal property rights in America today.

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