Eight states approved new measures to restrict the use of eminent domain on November 7th -- widely seen as a reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Kelo vs. New London.
"When the Supreme Court ruled in the 2005 case, Kelo v. the City of New London, that a government agency could seize a citizen's home and give it to a private developer, it galvanized private-property advocates.
They placed measures on the ballot in 11 states that would restrict "eminent domain," the government's right to take private property. Voters on Tuesday responded by voting in favor of the restrictive measures in eight of those initiatives -- call it Kelo's revenge.
Two other states rejected similar ballot measures, and results for one were not expected until later on Wednesday."
Most of the measures that passed limited their scope to restricting government's use of eminent domain to public purposes only. In California and Idaho, voters rejected proposals that would compensate property owners for any regulations that would limit the economic value.
Comments
Which Initiatives Involved "Regulatory Takings"?
There has been very little news coverage of this issue, and the news stories I have seen contradicted each other.
Does anyone know whether any of the initiatives that passed required compensation for "regulatory takings" as well as limiting eminent domain? Or was California's initiative the only one involving "regulatory takings," as this article seems to imply?
Charles Siegel
Kelo hiding regulatory takings
Charles,
Looks like the author used talking points rather than research to compose this article (the dangers of cutting staff budgets for media outlets - the public is under- or malinformed).
The AZ prop 207 is both anti-Kelo and anti-regulatory takings. Section
12-1134. Diminution in value; just compensation
is the regulatory takings portion - the wording is actually less extreme than the Reason-type Leonard Gilroy argumentation we've seen here recently - but there still is no limits on the dimunition of value, so there certainly will be an influx of land-use lawyers to AZ in the near future.
Best,
D
Finally Some News About "Regulatory Takings" Initiatives
In Arizona "65 percent of voters passed Proposition 2007, which mixes eminent domain and regulatory takings issues, seriously curbing government ability to take land and manage growth. Similar double-barrel measures got defeated in California and Idaho, while Montana was spared from such a referendum by a court, which had found the proposed mixed ballot unconstitutional."
http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=5742&state=3
Charles Siegel
More Regulatory Takings results
The National Conference of State Legislatures prepared the summary at the link below.
http://www.ncsl.org/statevote/prop_rights_06.htm