From the Email Inbox: Eminent Domain Reform

Fake Eminent Domain Reform
For more information:

http://volokh.com/posts/1175462916.shtml

May 4, 2007


Beware of politicians bearing initiatives to curtail their own power. Things may not be what they seem.

When a push for reform becomes widespread, politicians realize that they "must do something." They rightly fear that their constituents will become angrier if they don't act, and angered citizens may even take matters into their own hands.

What to do? Fake reform is a tried-and-false approach.

Case in point: eminent domain. The outrage over how the Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for unlimited eminent domain abuse a couple years back has produced a spate of efforts to curtail such abuse. That's good. Except when it's bad, when the reform is just a diversion.

More specific case in point: the eminent domain "reform" initiative that the California League of Cities now advances.

Usually, fake eminent domain reform comes in the form of legislation. But Ilya Somin makes a good case at the Volokh Conspiracy blog that this initiative is your typical bait-and-switch of the sort politicians love. It pretends to protect property rights. But it actually endorses an open-ended use of eminent domain for "economic development." And the narrow protection it proposes for "owner-occupied" property could be easily circumvented.

Concerned Californians need to have a chat with their neighbors to spread the word. Why vote for a measure favored by foes of property rights? Save your vote for a property rights measure that actually protects your property.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.

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