Category: property rights

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property rights

Apologies to Ms. Kelo

The sad story of Kelo v. The City of New London keeps dragging on, adding coda to epilogue, epilogue to coda.

Recently, Jeff Benedict, the author of Little Pink House, gave a talk attended by both Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Richard N. Palmer and Suzette Kelo. Afterwards, chatting with Ms. Kelo, Benedict was approached by Justice Palmer, who shocked the journalist with an admission: “Had I known all of what you just told us, I would have voted differently.”

The judge then turned to Ms. Kelo to say how sorry he was.

The judge, who had voted in the majority against the New London homeowner, was not recanting the decision, as such, but instead merely admitting that the facts as they developed in the case put the New London redevelopment project in a different light. And his apology? Not for the decision, but simply for Ms. Kelo’s suffering.

It’s something.

The real something in the case is what happened to New London’s Fort Trumbull site after Pfizer pulled out of the development. Most recently it has been turned into a dumping ground for branches, hedge clippings, broken limbs from storms, and the like. As one property rights watchdog put it:

Connecticut taxpayers have thus been soaked tens of millions of dollars, not just for nothing, but for making things worse.…

Much worse. Property rights were undermined. Judges felt compelled by practice and precedent to defend whimsical, frivolous takings powers against the just property rights of citizens.

We’re all sorry, now. But protecting property rights against abuse by government would mean never having to say we’re sorry, later.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights too much government

Oysters In, Soup Out

Oysterville Sea Farms in Oysterville, Washington — a small, coastal town that some of you may know from wordplay author Willard Espy’s memoirs — is in danger. The business has long sold soup and t‑shirts and other items to tourists, as well as books, knives and buoys “since the 1970s,” according to a local paper. But Pacific County is putting the kibosh on all that. It turns out that the business isn’t zoned for retail sales. 

“I’m really puzzled,” says the owner, who doesn’t see why the county would turn on a thriving business in the midst of a depression. He’s had to lay off six of his ten employees.

Considering that the county is just fine with his wholesale business, much of the complaint does seem a tad over-​the-​top. Indeed, the sea-​food wholesale biz is nothing if not noisome, and this operation has been a going concern at that location since the 1930s. 

I understand that zoning laws are often justified on property rights grounds, to defend neighbors against nuisances and the like in a consistent way. But there’s been a lot of research showing that zoning is usually just a means to reduce competition and deliver favors to some at the expense of others.

The complaint that inspired the crackdown was anonymous. In court, one sees one’s accusers. In regulation, one does not.

Finally, it is somewhat amusing, in a dark sort of way, that this business is being crippled by a “Department of Community Development.” Great job, guys.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Taste Racism

Bigotry and intolerance come in many forms. And they come around again and again. A bizarre New York Times “news story” demonstrates this:

Baghdad has weathered invasion, occupation, sectarian warfare and suicide bombers. But now it faces a new scourge: tastelessness.

Ah, the last twist of the knife! After all the bloodshed and tyranny, Iraqis celebrate newness with color:

In downtown Baghdad, a police headquarters has been painted two shades of purple: lilac and grape. The central bank, a staid building in many countries, is coated in bright red candy cane stripes.

The reporters list many examples. 

Matt Welch, at Reason magazine’s Hit & Run, has choice words for this particular article: “obnoxious” and “contemptible” and “latent ‘taste racism.’”

Put me in Matt’s camp. Aesthetic intolerance like this is ugly.

Contrary to the New York Times, the so-​called color-​crazed Iraqi people have latched onto a good thing: Property rights. You see, says a quoted expert, their mentality is “that you have to be the owner of your building, and you do what you want with it. But there are no government regulations like in Paris or Rome. It’s anarchy of taste.”

Oh, how shocking.

But is our tyranny of taste in towns and cities in the western world better? We have busybody City Councils and nasty neighbors telling you that you’ve painted your house the wrong shade of brown.

Freedom should be celebrated in many colors, including colors that annoy writers for the New York Times.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Property Owners Victorious

In late April, the Institute for Justice won a smashing judicial victory on behalf of the Community Youth Athletic Center, a boxing gym and haven for local kids, as well as for other property owners in the neighborhood. They hope it’s a knockout blow.

The California Superior Court ruled that National City had no warrant for declaring the area “blighted,” that the city government had violated due process, and that it had violated California’s Public Records Act by failing to provide a private consultant’s documentation of the alleged blight.

Such studies are often blighted themselves — jargon-​ridden fictions concocted to rationalize what the government wants to do solely for other reasons. After the Supreme Court’s egregious Kelo decision, which gave targeted property owners little hope of protecting their property on constitutional grounds from eminent-​domain attacks, property owners in California and other states fought for laws to protect themselves from such baseless designations of “blight.”

Of course, politicians continued to do their darnedest, grabbing stuff that doesn’t belong to them. So the status of the legal protections often must be adjudicated.

CYAC president Clemente Casillas says, “I hope National City does the right thing now and throws in the towel so we can get back to focusing all our attention on helping to grow the kids in our community. The city can have redevelopment, but that has to be done through private negotiation, not by government force.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
political challengers property rights

Trump vs. Private Property

If real-​estate magnate/​pink-​slip impresario Donald Trump can’t comb over his hair plausibly, how does he expect to convincingly coif his wheeler-​dealer track record? 

Over the past several months, Trump has been making disturbing noises about pursuing the GOP presidential nomination. Perhaps those encouraging him want the Republicans to remain almost as unpalatable to freedom-​loving folk as the Democrats.

Trump has an atrocious track record when it comes to limited government and private property. Like many developers in collusion with bureaucrats and the tax man, he doesn’t hesitate to use eminent domain to steal what ain’t his. All in the name of the so-​called  “public good,” of course, a catchall concept used to excuse almost any kind of ruthless predation.

Michelle Malkin reminds us that in the 1990s Trump  “waged a notorious war on elderly homeowner Vera Coking, who owned a little home in Atlantic City.… The real-​estate mogul was determined to expand his Trump Plaza and build a limousine parking lot — Coking’s private property be damned.” Fortunately, the valiant Institute for Justice took up her cause. She prevailed.

Trump’s comments on the 2005 Supreme Court decision Kelo v. City of New London are candid enough. The justices ruled that government officials could treat the Constitution as irrelevant with respect to property. Trump says he agrees  “100 percent “ with the Kelo decision.

That confession alone makes the idea of a President Donald Trump 100 percent repugnant.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
judiciary property rights

Pest Control for Pesky Evidence

Should courts be outlawed from thwarting outlaws?

The Environmental Protection Agency has acted to unilaterally ban a pesticide in use for decades. Writing for the Cato Institute’s blog, Ilya Shapiro notes that the agency’s move exemplifies “a growing trend among federal agencies and courts to incrementally expand the government’s enforcement power by adopting statutory interpretations that go beyond their plain meaning and intent.”

The pesticide is carbofuran, used to protect crops since 1969. What is the evidence that carbofuran poses a hitherto un-​comprehended threat to human well-​being? Federal law requires EPA to provide for a “notice and comment” period before altering an established legal threshold for pesticide residues on food. If “material issues of fact” are then raised, the agency must conduct a public evidentiary hearing. National Corn Growers indeed raised “material issues of fact” regarding the alleged hazards of carbofuran. So an evidentiary hearing is mandatory.

The DC Circuit ruled, however, that scientific disagreements are insufficient to trigger judicial review and that decisions about new residue tolerances should be left entirely to the EPA. If upheld, the decision means the agency could determine all by itself whether its regulatory actions are consistent with law. Even when they obviously aren’t.

Along with the National Corn Growers and other industry groups, the Cato Institute and Pacific Legal Foundation are challenging this latest assault on property rights and the rule of law — an assault you might even call a pestilence.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.