Efforts to Protect YOUR PROPERTY because the CITY WILL NOT

http://republican.sen.ca.gov/web/mcclintock/article_detail.asp?PID=297


Senator Tom McClintock
Date: July 14, 2005
Publication Type: Press Release Print Version

The purpose of this press conference is to announce the introduction of SCA 15 and ACA 22 to restore the original property rights protections of the American Bill of Rights that were ripped out of the Constitution by the Kelo decision of the U.S. Supreme Court two weeks ago.

That decision breaks the Social Compact that gives government its legitimacy and opened a new era when the rich and powerful can use government to seize the property of ordinary citizens for private gain. It may now literally take the house of a person it doesn’t like and give it to a person that it does like. Stripped of all the sophistries and euphemisms, this is what it comes down to.

It used to be that if a widow didn’t want to sell her home to a developer, she didn’t have to. That was the end of the matter, unless the developer sent in a bunch of thugs to beat her up. And, of course, government was there to protect her from the thugs. Now government has become the thug.

Nor is this a distant and remote threat. There are 6,000 public agencies in California that now have the power to seize your home, pay you pennies on the dollar for it, and then give it to somebody else for their own personal gain and profit.

Sadly, it now falls upon the states to restore the property rights of their citizens that are no longer protected under the Bill of Rights. SCA 15 and ACA 22 do so for California.

Specifically, these measures prohibit the use of eminent domain for private use under any circumstances. For strictly public uses, they require government to convince a judge that no reasonable alternative to the seizure exists. Government must state the use that the property will be put to and it must own and occupy the land for that specific public use. And it requires the land be returned to the rightful owner if it ceases to be used for that use.

When the legislature returns from recess, it will have a three-day window to place this measure on the ballot for November. If they fail to do so, they will still have a month to put it on the June ballot. Failing that, there is still time to qualify the measure by initiative for the November, 2006 general election ballot.

A bipartisan consensus is developing around the self-evident truth that the most fundamental purpose of government is to protect the individual rights of its citizens. We have introduced the measure with 45 co-authors – more than a third of the state legislature – including 4 Democrats. In Congress, on this issue, Maxine Waters and Richard Pombo are on the same side. The joint author of SCA 15 is Senator Dean Florez, who I would now invite to say a few words.