John Paul Stevens Is Still Trying
To Defend the Kelo Debacle
Reason Magazine,
by
Damon Root
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
5/19/2019 6:52:42 AM
John Paul Stevens has had it rough. In 2005, Stevens, then an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, authored one of the worst SCOTUS decisions of the past 50 years. Kelo v. City of New London let a local government bulldoze a working-class neighborhood so that private developers would have a blank slate on which to build a luxury hotel, a conference center, and various other upscale amenities. The city's goal was to erase that existing community via eminent domain and replace it with a new commercial district that would (maybe? hopefully?) fill the local coffers with more abundant tax dollars.
Stevens, the poor soul,
Reply 1 - Posted by:
udanja99 5/19/2019 7:00:28 AM (No. 67110)
You have to get all the way to the end of the article to find that it’s ultimately about bashing PDT.
15 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Paperpuncher 5/19/2019 7:04:18 AM (No. 67113)
#1,Your beat me to it. The whole thing was building up to slam Trump in the last two sentences.
4 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Nevadadad46 5/19/2019 7:32:34 AM (No. 67123)
What a crock- Trump was only invested in the New Jersey development Authority. It was the Authority that brought the court action. Trump was part and parcel of that whole overall effort. Yet, becasue the writer of the article is using this debacle of Stevens' decision to slam Trump. Suddenly Trump was the one "laughed out of court". What an A-hole writer. Nothing but propaganda from a lefty.
21 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 5/19/2019 8:13:21 AM (No. 67134)
I no longer trust the SCOTUS to do anything well. They are, after all mere men. They are NOT a cut above Joe Sixpack as some would have you think. The most recent examples are C.J. Roberts and the newbie Kavanaugh. Steven's arrogant title says a lot ''My First 94 years...'' That's what we get for appointing them for LIFE.
11 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Ken M. 5/19/2019 8:53:10 AM (No. 67154)
Something like this happened more than 60 years ago in Pittsburgh, although not based on a SCOTUS decision. More than 8,000 residents of the Lower Hill District were displaced to make way for the (now demolished) Civic Arena.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_District_(Pittsburgh)
https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/lower_hill/
https://historicpittsburgh.org/islandora/object/pitt:MSP285.B033.F05.I10
https://www.post-gazette.com/business/development/2019/05/15/Pittsburgh-Penguins-Civic-Arena-Hill-District/stories/201905150168
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Strike3 5/19/2019 9:31:16 AM (No. 67175)
How did we all know it was going to be a Trump-Bashing party? There are several obvious clues.
The solution to these cases is simple, require the party that wants the land to pay the owners twice the appraised value of their homes. Everybody makes out. That parking lot that PDT wanted would have made enough money in a month to pay for the old lady's home and she could have lived in luxury and left New Jersey all in one swift deal.
5 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Jethro bo 5/19/2019 10:00:38 AM (No. 67186)
A sorry decision supported by the logic of a true delusional liberal’s 5 year old kindergarten kangaroo court maturity. This is the problem since FDR. Judges are nominated for political servitude to the liberal political party and now because they understand and respect the Constitution
1 person likes this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
WhamDBambam 5/19/2019 10:05:10 AM (No. 67188)
Muttering old fool. Any cudgel to bash our President for some, I suppose.
8 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 5/19/2019 10:53:56 AM (No. 67211)
A lawyer that I met years ago in shooting competition told me that I must have misunderstood when I mentioned the insanity of the Kelo decision. He said, "No, that isn't possible. You must have misunderstood that situation". He later gave up on the practice of law and found a new way to make a living, probably out of disgust. And I did not misunderstand, the ruling was frankly criminal.
This was a clearly and totally wrong ruling, and it needs to be overturned.
3 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Omen55 5/19/2019 11:35:40 AM (No. 67227)
Hey.John.
Your opinion truly doesn't matter anymore.
2 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 5/19/2019 11:49:37 AM (No. 67234)
As I recall, David Souter used this Kelo decision to enrich himself in retirement when he obtained a piece of property.
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
MindMadeUp 5/19/2019 12:26:13 PM (No. 67253)
Since "public purpose" can mean "whatever the government says benefits the public", this decision means politicians in power can take anyone's property at any time if it serves their "purposes". Socialists/communists (Democrats) love this idea, since it would ultimately mean they can (and will, given the chance) use eminent domain to, for example, seize all property that contains oil wells in order to drill government-owned oil wells as "public works".
2 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
jorgecito 5/19/2019 12:27:22 PM (No. 67255)
Look, we don't have to agree with DJT on every single issue.
Trump likes Kelo? Well, of course he would, as a real estate developer. I believe Kelo was a bad decision. (And #6, I too remember the case of the elderly lady in Atlantic City, who wanted to keep her house from being destroyed for a casino parking garage. That wasn't necessarily a case of wanting to hold out for more money. Some people just want to stay put –they won't settle for any amount of money.)
I also disagree with Trump on today's tweet, i.e. viewing rape and incest as exceptions for which abortion should be legal.
But neither of those disagreements is going to stop me from supporting President Trump on the 90% of other issues where he's right.
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Smart11344 5/19/2019 1:12:25 PM (No. 67275)
I hate to really comment to show my ignorance. What is KELO?
0 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
StormCnter 5/19/2019 1:54:08 PM (No. 67287)
In case you are serious, Susan Kelo was the lead petitioner against the City. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1101424605047973909&q=kelo+v+new+london&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33
0 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
DVC 5/19/2019 2:06:58 PM (No. 67288)
#14, short version: Using the government condemnation power, intended for roads, powerlines and bridges, to take property from owners to give to developers on the "legal basis" that the government getting higher taxes from the property from the new use is a governmentally legitimate reason for taking private property for "public use'.
VERY bad precedent. Private property rights should be absolutely solid, and government condemnation very narrowly proscribed.
4 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
MickTurn 5/19/2019 9:07:30 PM (No. 67410)
Bottom line this is theft of property and the SCOTUS should be shut down on this!
0 people like this.
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