October 8, 2005

Fighting Temptation

Today's Tennessean reports on efforts to protect Tennessee property owners against excessive use of government's eminent domain powers in the wake of the Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision, which essentially empowers government to take private property for any reason it deems a "public use" - even if it defines "public use" as "increasing the government's tax revenues by taking your house and giving it to a developer who will raze it and build something that will pay higher property taxes."

The paper reports that several state legislators have filed bills that would prohibit local governments from seizing private property for private development, and there are proposals for legislative action at the county level as well. Current Tennessee law gives fairly good protection against such abuse, but Kelo provides a huge temptation for some future Tennessee legislature to broaden its definition of "public use" to allos government seizure of private property for revenue-boosting private redevelopment. Any legislation to prevent that is a good thing.

I believe a candidate could win the governor's office running on a platform of eminent domain reform and support for a "Taxpayers Bill of Rights" to cap the out-of-congrol growth of state spending and the resulting inevitable tax increases.