In the movie “Wild River,” an 80-year-old farmwoman tries to teach a government official the meaning of property rights. It is the 1930s, and the Tennessee Valley Authority wants to build dams that would put the woman’s farm underwater. The government needs to buy her out and makes what seems a generous offer, but she won’t sell.
Putting on a show for the official, the woman orders a poor black farmhand to sell her his beloved old hound.
She says: “I’ll give you 15 dollars for him. What’s the matter? He ain’t worth more than that, is he?”
Growing agitated, the farmhand replies: “No, ma’am. He ain’t worth nothing, but I ain’t gonna sell him. … You ain’t got no right to make me.”
And she responds: “You know that’s true, Sam. Come to think about it, I don’t have the right.”
Some things don’t come with price tags. That’s why the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment makes good people nervous. It gives government the power of eminent domain – the right to take private property for public use, provided the owners are given “just compensation.” What is “just compensation” to someone who doesn’t want to sell?
“Wild River” provides no easy answers. The dam-building plan seems noble. It would end the flooding that takes countless lives. It would bring electricity to an impoverished corner of Appalachia. Yet the audience suffers with the woman fighting for her beat-up farm – and, against practical reason, sees her point.
Now suppose the government didn’t want her farm for a big state-run project. Suppose it planned to give the property to Costco, because the big-box discount chain would pay higher property taxes. Or to a real-estate developer wanting riverfront land for a marina, health club and restaurants. The audience would be rightly appalled.
Well, the Supreme Court has just paved the way for that kind of abuse. The court ruled that the city of New London, Conn., could condemn 15 houses in a blue-collar neighborhood and replace them with a conference hotel, office park and condos. Economic development, the 5-4 ruling said, is a public use.
That liberal justices were the majority in this awful decision brought only stunned silence to most progressive circles. How could their guys think it OK to take homes from working-class people and hand them to big businesses?
In a stinging dissent, Justice Sandra Day Bless-Her-Heart O’Connor captured the horror. “Under the banner of economic development,” she wrote, “all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded.”
The chain of events leading to this case is astounding. New London was long an economically distressed city. It got a needed boost in 2001, when the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer opened a huge research center on the city’s riverfront. So when Pfizer executives said they wanted something more upscale in the area, the city was happy to accommodate.
The city put together a plan to spiff up the neighborhood, and condemned the weathered Victorian cottages and auto-body shops standing in the way. Many property owners accepted its offer – but 15 did not, and brought their case to the Supreme Court.
Amazingly, each state can pretty much craft its own meaning of “public use.” And, writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens noted that the high court was deferring to Connecticut’s broad definition.
But this controversy is not over, even in Connecticut. It seems state officials hadn’t asked the people how they felt about the matter. At first, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal cheered the decision. Then he heard the screams. Now, he’s saying the state’s eminent domain law “deserves serious, critical scrutinizing.” Gov. Jodi Rell said ditto.
Other states are also rethinking their laws. For example, Washington, Michigan and Illinois have banned the use of eminent domain for economic development.
In 1795, the U.S. Supreme Court called eminent domain “the despotic power.” So when employed, it had better be for a big, fat obvious public use.
And there will still be pain. Not everyone can place an economic value on what they love, be it an old mutt or a family farm. As the Mastercard ads say, some things are priceless.
Froma Harrop is a Providence Journal columnist. Contact her by writing to fharrop@projo.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
