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House approves limits on eminent domain use

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp ... an/3270128

"July 18, 2005, 9:09AM

THE LEGISLATURE
House approves limits on eminent domain use
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
RESOURCES
• Complete coverage: See more stories and resources on the 79th Texas Legislature from the Houston Chronicle.

AUSTIN - Private property owners would be protected from state and local governments seizing their land for economic development purposes under a bill overwhelmingly approved by the Texas House Sunday night.


The bill, drafted in response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing eminent domain seizures for economic development projects, gained final passage 136-0.

Earlier Sunday, the House also gave final passage to legislation allowing phone companies to offer enhanced TV services throughout Texas, which one report shows will create 12,000 new jobs and $1.8 billion in ongoing annual investments.

The House version of the eminent domain bill was amended to stop the city of Freeport from seizing waterfront land from a family-owned shrimping company to make way for a private marina project.

The Senate has passed similar legislation, but differences must be worked out in a conference committee before midnight Wednesday when the special session ends.

The House bill also requires local approval from county commissioners courts for state use of eminent domain to seize land for gas stations, convenience stores, hotels and other commercial enterprises in the median of the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's ambitious toll road project.

House sponsor Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, said the recent Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. New London, Conn., "harms what we hold dear in Texas, the protection of private property rights."

That decision ruled in favor of the city of New London, which condemned 15 private properties for an economic development involving a private corporation.

"Ultimately, what the court decision said is, you are allowed to own property, pay your mortgage, pay your taxes and you can keep your private property until someone offers to pay more taxes on that property," Woolley said. "This decision has shocked and alarmed property owners across the country."

The Supreme Court, in making its decision, specifically said state legislatures and other local governments are free to restrict the use of eminent domain further if they don't want to allow its use for private economic development purposes.

Perry added the eminent domain issue to the special session's agenda after a flood of calls and letters from Texans seeking private property rights.

The House approved several other amendments,including one by Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, requiring governments to pay replacement value to property owners in certain land seizures.

Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, protested that the change would affect nearly every eminent domain seizure in Texas and undo 50 years of eminent domain law.

Corte, however, argued property owners have little say when governments seize their land, so it is only fair they get reimbursed for replacing it.

"Did those people ask to have their land taken away? No, they did not," he said.

The bill, which was passed in the Senate 25-4 before the House amended it, makes clear that eminent domain can be used for traditional purposes such as railroads, public roads, utility services, water and wastewater projects and drainage projects. It would allow economic development seizures if the land is blighted and harmful to the public.

The bill allowing phone companies to compete with cable companies will also return to the Senate because it was amended in the House.

It allows companies that want to offer TV services to get a statewide franchise starting in September. In return, the companies would pay a fee based on their gross revenues."

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Looks like government still works, at least in Texas :)

Confiscating property - Walter E. Williams

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walt ... 0629.shtml

Locate your representative's here:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/fyi/fyi.htm

I am sending emails to my representatives now.

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example:

"Please act to defend property rights

I am strongly opposed to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that local governments may seize land for private development.

It is un-American and unjust.

I strongly support a state constitutional amendment limiting local powers of eminent domain at the earliest opportunity.

Thank you,"

Looks like some Texas lawmakers are fighting for the American way:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3239023

Looks like one local government isn't wasting any time:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp ... an/3239024

stevie_d_64 wrote:

Paladin wrote:Apparently communism isn't dead.

Yeah, but can the United States of America really turn to the dark side???

Until we get a better Supreme Court, I think we're going to need state and/or federal laws against the taking of private property for public 'purposes' (as opposed to the historical public 'use').

Apparently communism isn't dead.


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Manifesto of the Communist Party

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/class ... festo.html

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 1848.

"The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. "

I was afraid that the supreme court would rule that way. Scary