Supreme Court Screws Up

The Supreme Court put out a decision today that strikes me as being rife with the possibility for abuse and corruption all over the place. I'd be interested in hearing more about why the liberals were mostly for this and the conservatives were against it. It seems to me to be the exact opposite of what the voting should have been. Here's the text of the article:

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.

It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.

The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They 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.

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."

Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

There is so much wrong with this decision I barely know where to start. First, allowing the creation of tax revenue for a city as "public use" that would justify uprooting people from their homes sets a VERY dangerous precedent. Justice Stevens' assumption that cities will have a careful economic plan borders on lunacy. What if cities grab land like this and give it to corporations based on some handout from the corporation to a public official? That's just inviting more lobbying and corporate/government corruption.

Second, this decision will increase sprawl as businesses push out into the suburbs even more, and displace homeowners to do so. It wasn't bad enough that corporations are able to buy up family farms and build Walgreens and Wal-Marts, now they can do it to family homes, too.

Third, supposing that the land that is being handed out to the corporations is "inner-city" land, and that the residents of homes on that land are compensated: are they going to be compensated enough? If the land is poorly valued in the first place, are the displaced people going to be able to afford to rebuild their lives elsewhere?

Fourth, the destruction of communities is not what this nation needs to be concerning itself in. People grow attached to their neighborhoods and a sense of responsibility to others can only be created over time. Forcibly removing people from their homes not only removes the sense of responsibility but creates more feelings of "watch your own ass" that will make trust in one's neighbors even harder later on.

I'm extraordinarily disappointed that the Supreme Court, particularly liberals like Justices Ginsberg, Souter, and Kennedy, made this decision. It seems like it should have been a no brainer, but apparently it's not.