I wonder what the lawyers in the house will say about the arguments in Mr. Edward D. Herlihy's WSJ piece -- an excerpt of which follows:
"The planned condemnation of Deepdale, if accomplished, would violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the government from taking private property unless it is for a 'public use,' even when the property owner is justly compensated for the taking. Although Kelo gave local governments significant leeway in determining what a proper 'public use' is, it did not abandon all limitations on what is allowable. The Supreme Court took care to emphasize that local governments must still act for a valid 'public purpose' in taking property, and may not do so merely 'to benefit a particular class of identifiable individuals.' Yet that is exactly what North Hills seeks to do with Deepdale: It wants to condemn a private golf course so that its residents can use it as their own de facto private golf club and thereby increase their property values. No court has ever upheld such a taking, and no court could reasonably do so under Kelo.
"The facts in Kelo illustrate the sort of public purpose the Supreme Court had in mind. As the Supreme Court explained, New London is 'depressed' and 'economically distressed,' with an 'ailing economy' and 'high unemployment,' and the city had 'carefully formulated an economic development plan' to address its economic problems. The city's purpose was accordingly a proper public one, a bare majority of the court concluded, because it wasn't intended just 'to bestow a private benefit.'
"Contrast North Hills. It's the richest community in the Northeast, and one of the 10 richest in the country....
You'll see no economic deprivation here."
Mr. Herlihy goes on to say that the Mayor's plan is wrong-headed, in any event: that the Constitutionally required "just compensation" would be "prohibitively expensive"; that the bond issue required would "increase property taxes significantly"; that the Mayor's possible plan to defray expenses by selling off a piece of Deepdale and/or the development rights to certain other property in the village would produce "more sprawl, more construction and more traffic in an area overbuilt as it is."
Herlihy concludes: "Confiscating Deepdale would be as reckless as it is illegal.... Indeed, the mayor's stated plan is exactly what the Supreme Court in Kelo said would go over the line: using the public power of eminent domain merely to bestow private benefits, and taking one person's property just to give it to someone else. That's not just unwise and unconstitutional -- it's just plain wrong."
Of course, as we all know, (1) courts occasionally do unreasonable things, and (2) politicians occasionally do things that are reckless and/or just plain wrong.
What say ye, counselors?