"Property rights have been fundamental to our way of life in Missouri since before we were a state.  The very settlement of the Heartland depended upon the promise of landownership that was legal and protected from government seizure by law.

 

There are few things as fundamentally American as respecting the boundaries of private property.  From the Oklahoma land rush to “forty acres and a mule,” the ownership of land has been an inviolate part of the American Dream and a basic freedom.  The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states that, “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” 

 

Only on rare and justifiable occasions can the government invoke eminent domain, by which it can seize private land at a fair market price to make improvements on behalf of the public good.  Examples of this practice include the widening of a road or the construction of a new airport.  Under the traditional interpretation of this law, eminent domain was invoked rarely and after extensive deliberation.  Often, state supreme courts were left to determine the appropriateness of a state’s or city’s eminent domain claim.  Every effort was made to give the landowner thorough recourse before any property was taken.

 

Recently, however, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to change that proud tradition and its protection under law.

 

In its latest ruling on the issue, the court said that eminent domain can apply to private land being seized for not just public uses, but private uses as well.  The erosion in the accepted application of eminent domain laws is alarming.  What remains to be seen is how drastically this decision will erode private property rights in the United States.

 

My concern is that big government has bought all the land it can handle at this point, and it is now seeking to use eminent domain to make deals with private developers.  A strange but true fact is that fully 29 percent of American land is publicly owned by some entity of government.  The upkeep and management of these lands costs federal, state, and local governments billions of dollars each year.  Now, eminent domain threatens to become a revenue stream for these same governments. 

 

The erosion of private property rights now extends far beyond what our founders envisioned.  Ben Franklin and George Washington would be shocked to see a city government force Americans to sell their homes, which in turn become a condominium complex or a shopping mall.  But that is exactly the type of scenario this decision invites.  According to the court, boosting local tax revenues has become a matter of the “public good.”

 

Though we will try to restore protections to landowning Americans in the weeks ahead, there seems to be little Congress can do to intervene in this case.  More than likely, the tests of this interpretation will fall to lower courts as landowners contest the new eminent domain claims of encroaching governments. 

 

I, along with many Missourians who have shared their views with me, am extremely concerned about the direction of the courts in America.  On matters of religious freedom, the American family, and now property rights, our courts are overstepping their bounds.  By bending the Constitution to suit specific purposes, they are distorting the intent of our founders and undermining the document that the framers used to codify our freedoms. 

 

This decision leaves Americans in the lurch, in danger of pleading with the government for the very right to own a home or land.  The Cole Porter song has become a battle cry of the American landowner:

 

 

–30–