Do you support Eminent Domain? If yes, why? If no, what can we do to change the law?

Question

I, personally, am against Eminent Domain. I think it is an absolute abuse of power, and it is the liberals who are doing it. I don't see a lot of Republican City Councilmen trying to take people's houses away from them. It's always the liberals... Anyways, what do you think?

Answer 1

I am against it...in Seattle they used it to take away land to build a transit system....it costs millions of dollars. Then we changed our minds after we got all of the land and closed businesses down.

Now they say the good thing is that the land we got increased in value, so we won't be losing money....

What about all those people that lost their businesses and homes for nothing!

It is a scam, to take property from citizens.

Answer 2

This question is a red herring. Eminent Domain is the right for a government, whether city, state or federal, to take private property for public purposes. The fifth amendment requires that the property owner receive fair compensation for the taken property. Your beef is about the actions of a city in Connnecticut that bought peoples' homes in an older neighborhood, for urban renewal, to put in stores, offices, hotels and create jobs. If you were on the city council and the businesses offering jobs showed you a way to improve the lives of a great number of your citizens, with no cost to the city's taxpayers, what would you do?

Without emiment domain, the government could not have bought privately owned land to build roads, highways, schools, parks, forts, naval bases, harbors, and even nature reserves. Kind of spans the political spectrum, doesn't it?

Answer 3

I completely agree with you . Isn't it ironic that the left wing people who support it try to say that they are for the average American. Eminent Domain should be outlawed. It is the worst abuse of government power in our system. When someone buys a home, and retires there, they should not have to worry that the government will come and take it away to build a duplex or a shopping center.

Answer 4

against it , seeing how the supreme court ruled in favor despite their ill fated logic where the argument the betterment of the community ( in that case it was for the benefit of developers and not a public works program ), the only upside is many cities have now enacted more define rules for eminent domain ( with the city of brea California going towards the liberals and for eminent domain for the benefit of few ) to prevent developers such land grabs. as for changing the law, more council people need to be voted out, and challenges to the supreme court.

Answer 5

1. I do NOT support Imminent Theft, er, Eminent Domain.

2. Constitutional Amendment. That is the only thing that can fix this now.

Answer 6

Say, you need to build a new highway.
It will improve economy of the city 2-fold.
Why should not the government be able to deal MINIMAL damage to some people(don't forget that they are COMPENSATED for land) to benefit many?
This is not really liberal v. conservative thing.
This is the basic principle of government.