Kelo v New London

Oh, remember the Kelo vs New London case in which the liberal Justices of the SCOTUS + Kennedy decided that eminent domain takings for public use didn't actually require public use if some perceived public advantage was served (in this case the additional tax revenues from a big corporate employer rather than the tax revenues derived from the people living in the part of New London that Pfizer wanted). How's that working out?

A decade ago, the town of New London, Connecticut claimed Kelo's house by right of eminent domain. The plan was to demolish the residential neighborhood so that Pfizer could built a massive research and development plant on the adjacent land. Pfizer got the land for next to nothing. Five Supreme Court justices upheld the taking, ruling that although the primary beneficiary was a corporation, it met the constitutional requirement of "public use."

Now Pfizer has announced that it is shutting down the plant.

The Hartford Courant reports:

Pfizer Inc. will shut down its massive New London research and development headquarters and transfer most of the 1,400 people working there to Groton, the pharmaceutical giant said Monday....

Pfizer is now deciding what to do with its giant New London offices, and will consider selling it, leasing it and other options, a company spokeswoman said.

Scott Bullock, Kelo's co-counsel in the case, told the Examiner's Tim Carney: "This shows the folly of these redevelopment projects that use massive taxpayer subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare and abuse eminent domain."

So no public advantage, vacant lots, shredded Constitutional rights...your government at work. It is worthwhile re-reading Justice O'Connor's eloquent dissent from this idiotic decision:

Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was ratified, Justice Chase wrote:

“An act of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority … . A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean… . [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).

Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded–i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public–in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property–and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent.

The rest is here.