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"A collaborative political resource." |
Eroding constitutional limits on governmental takings [Sotomayor]
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Race
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| Contributor | Servo |
| Last Edited | Servo Jul 30, 2009 12:21pm |
| Category | Opinion |
| News Date | Jul 30, 2009 12:20pm |
| Description | It’s not easy for a judge to undermine property rights further than the Supreme Court did in 2005 in Kelo v. City of New London. But Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now herself up for the Court, succeeded. In the 2006 case of Didden v. Village of Port Chester she signed on to perhaps the worst federal court property rights decision in recent memory. In Kelo the Court held that the government can condemn a person’s property and transfer it to someone else in order to promote economic development. In Didden, Judge Sotomayor’s panel went further, upholding the government’s condemnation of property after the owners refused to pay extortion money to a politically influential private developer.
In 1999 the village of Port Chester, N.Y., established a "redevelopment area," giving designated developer Gregg Wasser a virtual blank check to condemn property within the area.
When local property owners Bart Didden and Dominick Bologna sought a permit to build a CVS pharmacy in the area, Wasser demanded that they pay him $800,000 or give him a 50 percent partnership interest in the store, threatening to have their land condemned if they said no. They refused, and a day later the village condemned their property.
Didden and Bologna challenged the condemnation on the ground that it was not for a “public use,” as the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment requires. Their argument was simple and compelling: extortion for the benefit of a private party is not a public use. In a short, cursory opinion, Sotomayor’s panel upheld the condemnation. |
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