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Supreme Court takes more property rights -- Kelo II

Posted by ewv 6 years, 9 months ago to Politics
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The Supreme Court just further weakened protection of private property rights in the major property rights case of the term. A family in Wisconsin which owns two adjacent separate lots are prohibited from selling the one they bought as an investment because they own the one next to it with a family home. If anyone else had owned the second lot he would have been allowed to use it through 'grandfathering' of permission to use a lot purchased before the regulations prohibited using it. The government argues this is not a taking because the family still has something left.

The decision was 5-3 with Kennedy writing the majority opinion siding with the court's left. Kennedy also sided with the left in the infamous Kelo decision extending government compensated takings for public use to any government purpose, including selling it to a developer to get more taxes.

In this decision Kennedy invoked the Wild and Scenic River at the the St. Croix River corridor as justification for the regulations prohibiting use of property.

The St. Croix WSR is infamous for its abuse of property owners since the early 1970s. The National Park Service seized private property in the river corridor with mass eminent domain, but isn't allowed to take all of it. The rest is controlled by severe land use restrictions preventing building. What the preservationists can't take by eminent domain they take over through fiat without paying for it, leaving the owner with the deed and the tax bill.

Kennedy has now elevated this abuse to taking an adjacent lot anywhere in the country without even having to pay for it. His amended Fifth Amendment on takings now reads: "Private property shall not be taken for a public use, without just compensation, unless the owner owns the land next door, where 'public use' means whatever a government wants in the name of the public."

Murr v. Wisconsin:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/v...
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...

Background on Murr case:
Paradise Lost: A Family's U.S. Supreme Court Property Fight https://youtu.be/G5n1NYvGOvs
https://www.pacificlegal.org/case---m...
https://www.pacificlegal.org/murr
https://www.pacificlegal.org/releases...
SOURCE URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/23/a-loss-for-property-rights-in-murr-v-wisconsin/


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