Igou Gap and Shallowford Residents Booted by SCOTUS?

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June 23, 2005

Igou Gap and Shallowford Residents Booted by SCOTUS?

This one's quirky, to my undereducated mind. I was listening to the radio during lunch and I seem to remember hearing that the reasoning behind the majority opinion is based in deferment to state and local government -- incidentally, then, the inevitable property takeovers are not "at the hand of the Federal Government" directly, as some are charging.

The problem I see with the ruling is that there is just a bit too much flexibility in what an eminent-domain-invoking local government can possibly call "public" use of the land. I understand that we don't want the Feds stepping on what state and local governments can decide to do, so I guess it's just up to citizens everywhere to affect change to their local governments, through heavy participation in both elections and the legislative process, so that this power will not be abused.

We can probably all name examples where some of the private developers who ostensibly stand to gain from this ruling have ties aplenty to local elected officials (and it's likely that individual residential property owners have far fewer such inroads), so the near future feels a little squishy given these existing situations.

Since the Supreme Court won't intervene (and there are plenty of arguments to support that position), the only thing to keep hand-in-glove property handouts from happening is better local citizen watchdoggin'.

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