Economic growth > you

So I’m sitting here in a dingy Laundromat in Bloomington, IN on a Wednesday afternoon. What to do? Well, my dad emailed me this afternoon saying “Hey, did you see what the courts did in that New London case today?” Upon reading that, I thought to myself, this can’t be that bad… I mean, it’s the Supreme Court – if you’re looking for a part of government that actually acts in the manner the Constitution says it should, the court is pretty much your only choice. It simply can’t be that bad.

I tell people I don’t like to talk about politics much anymore. I tell everyone I’m pretty much over my angry phase and into my jaded/cynical stage in terms of the political arena. But every once in a while, something comes along that just makes my blood boil. And right now, it’s hotter than the fifties-era dryer I’m sitting next to.

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-ap-scotus-eminent-domain-0623,0,4268203.story?coll=hc-big-headlines-breaking

You don’t really have to read the article, I can pretty much summarize it for you. The plaintiffs are from New London, CT, a city that has lost many residents and jobs in recent years due to the decline of the manufacturing sector. The defendant is the City of New London, who want to allow private contractors to bulldoze these peoples’ homes and build… not a hospital, not a school… an office building and shopping mall.

The Court ruled that the city could knock down these people’s homes. It was a 5-4 decision with a very harsh dissent handed down by O’Connor, to whom Rehnquist, my boy Scalia, and Thomas gave an emphatic “You go girl.”

A goddamned shopping mall. A place for whiny teenagers to go and be rebellious by listening to Good Charlotte CDs at Sam Goody and buy Abercrombie and Fitch jeans at 80 bucks a pop. When did eminent domain extend that far? Where in the Constitution does it say that? You may have missed it, but after a lengthy afternoon in the law library, I found it. Seems that one of the framers was pretty cocked that day in 1789 and added Amendment 5B – “Given the people’s desire for a delicious food court and a Hot Topic, the government shall have the power to compel its citizens to take one for the team.”

What the hell was the Supreme Court thinking? Seriously, what the fuck. The justification is that since the city could gain a lot of tax revenue from new businesses, eminent domain (5th Amendment) extends to this case and permits the city to bulldoze houses while people are still living there. Thus, the Court said that because the city needs money, they can demolish people’s houses. So by extension, the next city in America that needs money will look at this case and decide to tell some unimportant residents to take a hike. Instead of fiscal responsibility, we have forced relocation.

You may have noticed that previously I mentioned something about an office building as well. Guess who’s planning on moving into that office building? Pfizer. A company that holds enormous sway in Connecticut state politics, and bankrolls many candidates from state government on up to the federal government. Clarence Thomas made this point in his dissent, saying that the court held, “against all common sense,” that this project constituted eminent domain, and called out the city of New London for concocting a plan that is “suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation.” Suspicious indeed.

O’Connor’s dissent was exceptionally awesome. You should read it. Here’s the site, you gotta scroll down a bit, but have a look, it’s well-written and very pointed:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=04-108

Highlights include:

“The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”

“Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded--i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public--in the process.”

Citing two precedents that show what the eminent domain provision is actually supposed to provide for:

“In [Hawaii Housing Authority v.] Midkiff. , we upheld a land condemnation scheme in Hawaii whereby title in real property was taken from lessors and transferred to lessees,” because “the oligopoly in land ownership was ‘skewing the State's residential fee simple market, inflating land prices, and injuring the public tranquility and welfare,’ and therefore enacted a condemnation scheme for redistributing title.”

“In Berman [v. Parker], we upheld takings within a blighted neighborhood of Washington, D. C. The neighborhood had so deteriorated that, for example, 64.3% of its dwellings were beyond repair... Congress had determined that the neighborhood had become ‘injurious to the public health, safety, morals, and welfare’ and that it was necessary to ‘eliminat[e] all such injurious conditions…’.”