Category: property rights

Farming Is Fundamental

If you live in Maine, you may now grow your own food. The right to do so has been safeguarded in the state constitution.

If you have the right to life and to sustain your life, surely you have a right to farm. As we all know, though, governments regularly find excuses to interfere with all kinds of peaceful activities.

So this past November, Maine voters passed a constitutional amendment authored by Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham (whose energetic campaigns for freedom have previously caught Common Sense notice) and proposed by the legislature.

Maine’s Right to Food Amendment makes clear that “All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable … right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume . . . as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights public lands or natural resources in the harvesting, production or acquisition of food.” (So there’s no California-style de facto “right” to loot.)

Foes of the amendment worry that it will enable people to bypass regulations.

Let’s hope so.

Don’t we want the new law to ban governments in Maine from banning agriculture for the sake of “esthetics,” protecting Big Milk, or any other rationalization for foiling farming on a person’s own property?

And for the idea to spread to the other states, where far too often the scales of justice don’t properly consider the citizen’s right to produce food against the bureaucrat’s regulations frustrating same.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags food, freedom, regulations, vegetable gardening

free trade & free markets property rights

Unions Must Stop

Golden State labor organizers want to be able to trespass on the property of companies to recruit new workers. But companies don’t want their operations periodically disrupted by trespassers.

Typical kind of political disagreement. One party wants its rights to be respected; the other wants to violate those rights.

That was pretty much where things stood in the Golden State until the California Supreme Court’s 6 – 3 decision last summer, which invalidated the relevant provision of the California law that had empowered unions to disrupt business for hours a day for up to a third of the year.

Let me repeat that: for hours a day for up to a third of the year.

The petitioners in the case were Cedar Point Nursery, which produces strawberries, and Fowler Packing Company, which produces grapes and oranges. Pacific Legal Foundation pursued the litigation on their behalf.

On September 1, a California district court followed up. In light of the high court’s decision, the district court ruled that the state can’t enforce union access without “just compensation” to property owners for temporarily taking their property.

This seems like an unnecessary and contradictory hedge, a misunderstanding of the context in which just compensation for government-authorized taking of a property for public use properly applies (if ever).

But, practically speaking, the rulings mean that California businesses have now escaped at least one of the many hassles that are encouraging so many to flee the state.

PLF attorney Wen Fa says that agricultural businesses in California can now function “without the threat of unions trespassing on their property and disrupting their workplaces.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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judiciary property rights

Landlords Defended, Sorta

In late June, the Supreme Court declined to end an unlawful CDC-enacted national moratorium on evictions.

Things have apparently changed. The court just ruled — in a 6 – 3 decision — that the “balance of equities” has tilted in favor of qualified deference to property rights and letting landlords try to financially survive.

Now it will be easier, or possible, for many beleaguered property owners to maintain properties — on which they depend for their livelihoods and tenants depend for things like heat as well as their residencies.

The three dissenters on the high court say that the “balance of equities” still tilts the other way, in favor of violating the property rights of landlords to help tenants unable or unwilling to pay the rent.

The court’s decision does not mention property rights. It does cite a 1972 precedent that cites other precedents “[requiring] Congress to enact exceedingly clear language if it wishes to significantly alter the balance between federal and state power and the power of the Government over private property.”

Of course, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress no authority to violate individual rights at will — even if it uses exceedingly clear language to do so. The Constitution does not say it’s OK to violate the Constitution.

What now?

Many landlords are still subject to state or municipal restrictions on evictions that this decision does not overturn. But the ruling may help them press for relief.

And we must hope that the U.S. Congress doesn’t get around to intelligibly re-revoking the rights of property owners.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags property rights, Supreme Court

property rights

The Maine Alternative to State Robbery

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 19, 2021
3 Comments on The Maine Alternative to State Robbery

civil asset forfeiture, police, corruption, drug war

Around the country, one of the worst predations against people who save money or own property is civil asset fo r feiture.

This is the grabbing of the cash and other belongings of innocent people on the basis of a mere suspicion (or feigned suspicion) of wrongdoing. By government.

No evidence is required by law: no arrest; no conviction. Just the willingness of some police officer, sheriff, or other member of law enforcement to grab what doesn’t belong to him.

There’s only one cure: state by state, these asset forfeiture laws must be abolished.

The Institute for Justice reports that Maine has now repealed its civil forfeiture law, making it the third state to do so. IJ’s own efforts deserve much of the credit.

Another hero of the story is Billy Bob Faulkingham, one of my favorite legislators and the main sponsor of the bill. (He is also behind a right-to-farm ballot measure and a good voter-ID bill.)

The bipartisan “Act to Strengthen Protections Against Asset Forfeiture” — which passed without the governor’s signature — states that “for property to be forfeited under the criminal forfeiture laws, the owner of the property[must] be convicted of a crime in which the property was involved.…”

Is this the end of the injustice?

In Maine, maybe.

Being on the books doesn’t necessarily mean that a law will be obeyed. But if and when it is violated, victims in the state will now have stronger legal recourse and a much better chance of promptly getting back their stuff.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags civil asset forfeiture, Drug War, police, police corruption

property rights

Not-So-Safe Deposit Boxes

Now hold on just a minute. I’m not one of those crazies who thinks the government is nothing better than a den of thieves constantly looking for new ways to steal from us. So don’t accuse me of making such an accusation. Please.

But, gee whiz, it sure makes the government look bad when obscure federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Justice engage in the mass theft of $85 million worth of property belonging to people accused of no wrongdoing.

It must be one of those oft-repeated wild aberrations.

In March, the federal government conducted a raid of a safe deposit box company called U.S. Privacy Vaults. The government accuses the company of abetting drug dealers.

The government accuses the box renters of … nothing. But DOJ is trying to use civil forfeiture laws to retain most of what it seized during the raid: some $85 million in cash and valuables.

The Institute for Justice is thankfully leading a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the victims.

“The government has no basis to think any of these people have done anything wrong,” notes IJ attorney Robert Frommer. “It just wants to keep their stuff. That’s unlawful and unconstitutional.”

One victim, Travis May, a Reason Foundation trustee, adds: “Civil forfeiture is an abomination. This is a clear demonstration of the perverse motive it creates.”

May says that Congress should outlaw civil forfeiture once and for all. I must agree … otherwise, we encourage the fandooglishly wacky impression that government is out to steal from us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags civil asset forfeiture, Justice Department, police

national politics & policies property rights

Zoning by “Outsiders”

“In recent years, there’s been a push to move zoning decisions further from the local level,” writes Matt Ray for Mises Wire — engaging in no small understatement.

“In 2019, Oregon passed House Bill 2001, making it the first statewide law to abolish single-family zoning in many areas. By expanding the state government’s jurisdiction to include zoning decisions previously handled by local agencies, the law entails an alarming centralization of state power.”

This trend is old, going back at least to the Progressive Era.

But the trend continues — “progresses” — and Oregon’s centralizing law has been “quickly followed by the introduction of similar bills in Virginia, Washington, Minnesota, and North Carolina,” Matt Ray explains. “Now President Biden is attempting to increase federal influence over local zoning.”

The problem should be obvious. Government land-use regulation by “zoning” is an awesome expression of rights-abridging power, usually becoming nothing more than what most regulations are: special-interest protection schemes, helping the in-crowd at the expense of “outsiders” (you and me, actually).

Most savvy people understand this in specific instances, but not generally, so when they see zoning they don’t like, they might leap to the notion that bad local regulations should be replaced by good state or federal regulators.

Trouble is, we have less ability to ensure that regulators in distant political centers aren’t captured by special interests or malign ideologues.

The only way out is a general rule-of-law approach, limiting all zoning powers. Barring that? Well, no matter how bad your city’s zoning, I wouldn’t trade it for zoning decisions from Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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