Friday, June 24, 2005

Supreme Court Overreach

In other news the Supreme Court has made a spectacularly bad ruling on an eminent domain case from New London, CT, basically accepting the spurious notion that the Constitution permits the taking of one’s home if the town can generate higher tax revenues using the land for something else. I can think of nothing more repugnant to the original ideals of the early colonists. Dennis Sevakis makes the key point:

The liberals and leftists on the Court may have just slit their own wrists along with those of the politicians who fastidiously protect judicial activism and eschew Constitutional originalism. Americans are justifiably proud and jealous of their property rights. Giving corporations a proxy power to run roughshod over those rights may be a tipping point in the public’s perception of the Court as a defender of the individual against the power of the state.

For this may be a decision too far.

Indeed, do you think property values just dropped a bit in New London? Multiplying that effect across the country would have serious repercussions.

More here from Stephen Bainbridge.

Posted by Matt on 06/24 at 01:34 PM
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