New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | June 24, 2005

Tim Cavanaugh interviews Scott Bullock, the attorney who defended the expropriated homeowners in Kelo.

Comments

|6.24.05 @ 6:42PM|#

I admire his determination and optimism. I'm just numbed by the apparent futility, but he sees further venues to fight in and hope for some kind of victory.

|6.24.05 @ 9:43PM|#

Good luck to him and the plaintifs.

|6.24.05 @ 10:47PM|#

The North Jersey case is even scarier than the Kelo case.

The Wine Commonsewer|6.24.05 @ 11:36PM|#

I opened the door to my room at the Esmerelda Hotel in Palm Springs this morning and there lay the LA Times, face up, and right there in the upper right hand corner of page one was the bad news. How depressing.

Although it made my heart skip a beat to read the interview, reality set in rather quickly and I must say that I do not share Scott Bullock's optimism.

I hope that the widespread anger over this decision is real and not just a libertarian pipe dream.

|6.25.05 @ 1:01AM|#

the la times headline didn't really do justice "Court approves forced sale" (if I remember correctly). How about "Prop 13 makes your property ripe for confiscation by the state".

|6.25.05 @ 2:26AM|#

Related commentary here.

Anon

|6.25.05 @ 9:08AM|#

If the development were to be put elsewhere, would it be ok to put in a road through these same houses to that development?

TWC|6.25.05 @ 2:14PM|#

Josh, good point, my local rag, where former DC Reason editor Rick Henderson pens editorials, had a slightly more informative headline:

"Justices Dilute Land Rights"

And it was a banner.

TWC|6.25.05 @ 2:23PM|#

Anon, read the post at your link about the decision being correct because of 100 years of precedent.

But, precedent is meaningless when the courts decide so (see Dred Scott and the civil rights movement or Roe v Wade), otherwise precedent is just a hook to hang your hat on when you want to bolster an opinion that conflicts with liberty.

100 years of bullshit law don't make it right for Los Alamitos to hand over church land to Costco.

|6.25.05 @ 7:57PM|#

"arguments about blight are hard to make" because America's cities are so sound that blight is a thing of the past? Um, no. I WISH!

Bullock's attempt to distinguish the New London takings from previous takings that resulted in private ownership is very unconvincing. "It's very different from something like a railroad. A railroad typically follows a very narrow strip of land." So we can take land for private purposes, if the parcels are narrow?

"Railroads and utilities are what are known in the law as something called common carriers. So even though they might be privately owned, they're really the equivalent of public bodies because everybody, the public, has an equal right to them. Everybody has a right to the utility line." Everybody has an equal right to purchase the new condos, too.

"And they're very tightly controlled by public officials, so they're really the equivalent of public bodies; that's why the court upheld them." So if the redevelopment authority places tight restrictions on the sale of the land, that works, because they'd be "very tightly controlled by public officials." You know what the difference between a railroad and a Redevelopment Authority is? A railroad is "really the equivalent of" a public body. A Redevelopment Authority actually is a public body.

The distinction he draws between the land taken in Ft. Trumball and blight takings, on the other hand, makes a lot of sense.

I look forward to the legislative actions that he says will follow, because they're certainly needed, but I don't think the problem will be as simple to address as he assumes.

McCabe|6.25.05 @ 9:09PM|#

I was down in Connecticutt with a fathers' rights organization I intern for and we went to meet this big-name lawyer. Turns out it was the guy who argued for the city in the Kelo case. I felt dirty working with him after I realized who he was.

|6.26.05 @ 3:36AM|#

McCabe,

You're a bigger man than I, as I would have called him an evil bastard and spat in his face.

|6.27.05 @ 7:59AM|#

Nevermind the Bullock.

|6.27.05 @ 9:01AM|#

The mind boggles at the real estate hanky panky and back room deals this decision will lead to. Everyone wants the same land. Who wants to bet that the biggest contributions to political contributions win?

|6.27.05 @ 9:02AM|#

That is, biggest contributions to political campaigns ...

|6.27.05 @ 9:39AM|#

That is, biggest contributions to political campaigns ...

Jason,

That would be too traceable.

|6.27.05 @ 11:43AM|#

I haven't followed this very closely, but I noticed that Scalia doesn't seem to be mentioned in the interview. In hopes of getting this thread over the 100 posts-mark, can someone tell me how Scalia voted and have someone else explain at lenght why it's the most screwed up judicial vote in history?

(Frankly, from what I've read, it looks like Kelo is going to go down in the books as about as brain-numbingly bad a legal ruling as the Dred Scott decision...)

|6.27.05 @ 12:58PM|#

joe, i agree with you that his reasoning is weak, but i also agree with what he's trying to do. the thing is, he's arguing like a lawyer; splitting hairs as a means to get what he wants done. that doesn't work as well when you're talking about changing the law; it becomes a question of morality, rather than precedent and details.

so he contradicts himself by saying in the same breath that legal precedent supports his position but that the law needs to be changed. that however doesn't hurt the argument that the law does, in fact, need to be changed.

|6.27.05 @ 3:09PM|#

zach,

His reasoning is weak because the problem he purports to solve is not the same thing as the political cause he's trying to shoehorn into the case at hand.

|6.27.05 @ 4:44PM|#

well strictly speaking, a problem itself is never equivalent to a political cause. but whether or not Kelo dealt with aspects of the issue you consider relevant, it was clearly tied up with the larger political cause of property rights from day one. i wouldn't say that he's trying to "shoehorn" anything, rather the opposite, he's failing to see the big picture of why his case failed before SCOTUS. namely, that the justices' hands were (partly) tied by precedent, and thus, that existing law needs to be reconsidered.