Sotomayor on property rights.
Here's Ian Murray in the Corner:
The Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo
case that governments can take private property and give it to
developers as part of a general redevelopment plan that they rationally
believe will benefit the public good (My colleague Hans Bader argued at
the time that that violated basic axioms of constitutional construction, and rendered the Constitution’s “public use” clause redundant).
But Judge Sotomayor went well beyond that, to hold
that property owners have no legal redress even in the face of what
legal commentators have called extortion, in Didden v. City of Port Chester.
In that case, a developer told a property owner to either give him
$800,000 or half his property, or he would seize it by having the
Village of Port Chester condemn it. When the property owner refused,
the developer promptly had the town condemn it and transfer it to him.
Judge Sotomayor and two of her colleagues upheld this seizure against a
constitutional challenge in an unpublished opinion.
Richard Epstein writes in Forbes:
The case involved about as naked an abuse of government power as
could be imagined. Bart Didden came up with an idea to build a pharmacy
on land he owned in a redevelopment district in Port Chester over which
the town of Port Chester had given Greg Wasser control. Wasser told
Didden that he would approve the project only if Didden paid him
$800,000 or gave him a partnership interest. The "or else" was that the
land would be promptly condemned by the village, and Wasser would put
up a pharmacy himself. Just that came to pass. But the Second Circuit
panel on which Sotomayor sat did not raise an eyebrow. Its entire
analysis reads as follows: "We agree with the district court that
[Wasser's] voluntary attempt to resolve appellants' demands was neither
an unconstitutional exaction in the form of extortion nor an equal
protection violation."
Maybe I am missing something, but
American business should shudder in its boots if Judge Sotomayor takes
this attitude to the Supreme Court
Elections, especially Presidential and U.S. Senate elections, have consequences.
(h/t Townhall)
