High Court Expands Home Seizure Right

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling in the matter of Kelo v. New London. Their decision: a swift kick to the nuts of private property rights.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling – assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as handing “disproportionate influence and power” to the well-heeled in America – was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are scheduled for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

The libertarian in me cries that this is almost, so freaking atrociously almost, Dred Scott v. Sandford kind of horrible. I can, to a degree, see the need for the ability of government to seize land, given adequate compensation, for a strong public interest. I cannot accept that the government should have the power to essentially choose arbitrarily between private and non-related entities, stripping one of its property in favor of the other.

Excellent collections of reactions around the blogosphere have been assembled by John Little, Michelle Malkin and Eric Cowperthwaite .