by Kerry Thomas
December 6, 2005
On June 23, 2005, the United States Supreme Court made a
startling ruling in the case of Kelo
v. New London (docket #04-108). In
that case, the Supreme Court interpreted the eminent domain clause of the 5th
Amendment of the United States Constitution in such a way that now anyone’s
private property can be taken by a government body and given to a private
developer, in an effort to increase the government’s tax base.
The 5th Amendment reads in part “…nor shall private
property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The Court ruled 5-4 that the
“public use” requirement of the 5th Amendment would be met as long
as the increased tax base from the new development would result in greater tax
revenue to the local government.
Because this ruling puts ALL private property in the United
States in jeopardy of being taken, it is now necessary to amend our United
States Constitution, in an attempt to limit this broad new power that has been
granted local governments. To that end,
the following is proposed:
Section 1 No Private
Property acquired for Public Use shall be sold, given, leased, rented or
otherwise conveyed to any non-Public entity without prior written permission of
the private property owner from whom the property was acquired for public
use.
Section 2 The
private property owner from whom said private property was acquired for public
use shall have the right of first refusal if said property is to be sold,
given, leased, rented or otherwise conveyed to any non-Public entity.
Section 3 If said
former private property owner is deceased, and has not previously given written
permission required under Section 1 of this amendment, the written permission
of all current heirs must be obtained in fulfillment of the provisions of this
amendment.
Section 4 The provisions of this amendment shall not apply to property acquired for public use prior to ratification of this amendment.
If you ever hope to be secure in your private property
rights, an amendment like this one is needed – now.
But such a move to amend the Constitution must begin at the
grass roots level. No career politician
will support such an amendment without broad popular support.
This will be a long process. But the sooner we begin, the sooner our private property rights
will be restored. Our court system has
proven it cannot be relied upon to ensure that our private property rights are protected. It will take a Constitutional amendment to
force the courts to uphold what once was thought to be a guaranteed right to
private property ownership in America.
(I also wrote an updated proposition on May 31,
2008. See Eminent
Domain Amendment, version 2)