I got the tip from fellow RedState gonzo blogger absentee that Susette Kelo’s house – the one that the Supreme Court ratified the City of New London’s taking away from her, in what was frankly not liberalism’s finest hour – still hadn’t been replaced by anything. If that post by This Woman’s Weblog is accurate, it sure looks like it:
As you know, Susette’s little pink house and the homes of her neighbors were seized through eminent domain in a landgrab sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court. New London promised to put a glitzy new private development project on the land, but now, nearly four years after the ruling and $78 million in taxpayer money spent, literally nothing has been built on the land; it remains vacant, the neighborhood bulldozed.
A call to the New London Development Corporation (the group that’s supposed to be the developer of the Fort Trumbull area) lasted until I got tired of listening to the phone ring (the city itself redirected my questions pretty much immediately), and their website is… ah, uninformative. They apparently had Ms. Kelo and Jeff Benedict, author of Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage
By all means, check it all out.
And if you don’t know why people all over the political spectrum have freaked out about this case for the last four years: go buy a house, and you’ll figure it out really quickly.
Crossposted at Moe Lane.
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What a waste.
Brian Hibbert (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 9:09AM EDT (link)What a supreme idiotic waste.
I think I’m as much saddened as outraged. I was outraged when the original decision was handed down. But now…. saddened is probably a better description.
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The only thing more outragious rulling that visited this travesty on Kelo...
AceInTX (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 11:11AM EDT (link)was the total inaction and capitulating of the Republican Majorities in the House, Senate and White House in the face of it!
Does anyone see a pattern here? nt
AceInTX (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 11:12AM EDT (link)This decision sucked, but it did a lot for private property
RobW (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 9:27AM EDT (link)I hate that these people had to lose their house, but I think this case has done more to roll back imminent domain abuse than anything else could have done. According to Wikipedia, only 8 states had laws limiting imminent domain before Kelo; as of July 2007, 42 states had passed imminent domain restrictions. In addition, people are much, much more serious about and aware of these issues than they were before.
Maybe New London Dev. Corp. is waiting for bailout money
bk (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 9:32AM EDT (link)Sickening
Mike Gray Thursday, January 29th at 11:33AM EDT (link)From the moment I heard about this case in 2005, I was disgusted. I’m even more disgusted now. I can’t believe what the Supreme Court did and am even more sickened that people were chased from their homes and the ground is still empty. All the stated “benefits” of tax revenue and the economic boost to the area have yet to be realized so, in reality, it was all for nothing.
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Worse than nothing actually.
The_Gadfly (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 12:04PM EDT (link)I believe undeveloped property is taxed at a lower rate than developed property, as well as having less inherent value to start. So for the last 4 years New London has lost tax revenue on this property, even if against morality you were to assume they were justified in taking it.
Good Point
Mike Gray Thursday, January 29th at 1:04PM EDT (link)I hadn’t even considered that. Ugh. It gets worse.
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Well *that's* only fair.
itrytobenice (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 9:46PM EDT (link)I hope it stays a vacant lot for a very long time. It is entirely appropriate that other people tied up their hopes and dreams in a property and are now losing money and hope.
It helps make up for the fact that they forcibly took someone’s house away for their own amusement and profit.
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I've always had mixed feelings about Kelo
The_Gadfly (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 12:10PM EDT (link)I recognize it as one of the more repugnant acts of judicial activism we’ve seen in recent years. If ever there were any case that ought to limit government using eminent domain to seize property, it is one in which it transfers unencumbered property from one individual to another. This loophole swallows the prohibition against takings entirely and effectively deletes it from the Constitution. And that really makes me sick.
On the other hand, what the h*ll, did the people in New London expect? When you elect a bunch of socialists to such supermajorities in your local government, you’re going to get socialist outcomes like this. We might not like it, but John Adams was right: Our constitution is not fit for any but a moral society.
Yes, but
Mike Gray Thursday, January 29th at 1:15PM EDT (link)The citizens of New London might have gotten what they asked for but the Supreme Court is supposed to be immune to these pockets of unconstitutional socialism. Their ruling has made it possible for these situations to sprout up across the nation. Sure, many places enacted their own protective legislation, but that’s obviously voluntary.
I think I’m most disgusted, not because the government benefits from it (through supposedly increased tax revenue), but that developers and businesses benefit from it. It’s legalized thievery. Even in the most depressed, downtrodden ghetto, you can’t tell me that there aren’t some good people in there. It’s not like they’re just demolishing abandoned buildings and crack houses.
When their property is stolen so that developers can “rehabilitate” an area and line their own pockets, I can’t think of a bigger travesty. And our Supreme Court is complicit.
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Adam's point is that when society itself ceases to be moral
The_Gadfly (Diary) Wednesday, February 4th at 8:43PM EDT (link)there are no institutions within the society that are moral either. That applies to SCOTUS as well as Congress, the Executive Branch, and the state institutions. We wound up with Kelo precisely because the society has become so corrupted. It doesn’t matter how tightly you try to write the language, if the people charged with interpreting it are not themselves moral, and do not hold that society should also be bound by that morality, the morality won’t hold. Originalism or textualism will get a moral person to the write conclusions, but neither will help someone without morals.
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Rapunzel46 Thursday, January 29th at 4:47PM EDT (link)Did the story on this last night. The house has been moved, but she no loinger owns it… and yep… all empty, snow-covered lots with all the homes gone.