Sunday, July 31, 2005

Sorry Governor Dean your Kelo story is eminently without legs

Simply put Howard Dean's spin on the Kelo decision won't fly. It has no legs. None. The Kelo decision that expanded the powers of eminent domain "to expand the tax base" of a municipality by town fathers is a corporate liberal's dream. Kelo makes it easier to take the property of the powerless and deed it to another private party. The coalition of government planners and private developers is a threat to private property. This has long been the critique made by libertarian conservatives. Dean should know better. Patterico calls out the Governor.


Dean’s reference to the “right-wing� court was also erroneous. The four justices who dissented in the Kelo vs. New London case included the three most conservative members of the court - Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the fourth dissenter.

The court’s liberal coalition of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer combined with Justice Anthony Kennedy to form the majority opinion, allowing the city of New London, Conn., to use eminent domain to seize private properties for commercial development.

"We think that eminent domain does not belong in the private sector. It is for public use only,� Dean said.


He really is destroying his party. Should we be Napoleonic and let him?

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