Do liberal judges favor wealthy developers over regular people?

OK, that was a bit inflammatory. But curiously, all the liberals on the Supreme court voted to allow cities to take anyone's land and give it to wealthy developers, and all the conservatives voted against it. This is a few months old as news, but it came up on another thread, and it seems to me that many moderates and liberals have a misunderstanding of what conservative jurists would do, and might actually be glad if more conservatives sit on the Supreme court. http://www.washingtonpost.com/.../23/AR2005062300783_pf.htmlSo Scalia, Thomas, Rhenquist and O'Connor voted against it, and Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer voted for it. All the liberals voted to empower the taking of anyone's land, if a city sees fit, and the moderates split, and all of the conservatives favored interpreting the 5th Amendment as meaning what it originally meant.So it looks to me that if you don't want your home subject to being seized by a local city council in the back pockets of a wealthy developer, you'd better hope some more conservatives get on the bench.If the GOP were smart, they'd be all over this, but that's a big IF.This message has been edited by randman, 11-17-2005 01:15 AM

Note Congress's actions, and how the dem leader, Pelosi, disagrees with using Congress to protect http://www.washingtonpost.com/.../06/30/AR2005063001082.htmlTo their credit, some liberals and democrats also opposed the decision, but it's worth noting that that the bulk of the support for this reinterpretation of "public use" to mean private use deemed good by public officials comes from liberal democrats.

No, they voted to not overrule the state. I personally have concerns about the taking of private property in this way, but I don't fault the supreme court for concluding that it is a state issue rather than a Federal issue.I do think you wrongly characterize it as liberal vs. conservative. In my book, Kennedy is a conservative. O'Connor often pays more attention to the specifics of the particular case than to broad constitutional principles. If we consider only the votes of the others, it looks more like a case of the idealogical extremists against the rest.I really don't want to further discuss this. I haven't studied the full details of the case, and it is not one I want to spend time studying.

To claim they were merely voting not to meddle with the state is wrong, and obscures the real intent of the ruling.What they were ruling on was the meaning of "public use" in the 5th amendment. The liberals redefined the term "public use" to mean any private use deemed beneficial to the public by local authorities.The ruling is not surprising when you understand the basic worldview of such liberals which is that private property rights are not as important and perhaps not really moral as the rights of the community via the government to make improvements for the community. In other words, they ruled according to a socialist worldview, which is very consistent with many here in this forum.However, I suspect many of the socialists and liberals here have not really thought this through, and deplore this ruling.The ruling is also not surprising when look at the history of activist judges on the Supreme court. What they did with the 1st amendment with respect to religion, they are doing here. The first amendment guarantees that religious expression cannot be prohibited, but they have interpreted it to mean that all public religious expression must by law be prohibited. By public, I refer to participation in some form by government employees or elected officials, etc,...They, of course, even took this to apply the schools and state governments.So they are doing the same here. The intent is that no private property can be taken except for genuinely public uses, but they have effectively turned that around on it's head so that now, private property can be taken for any use whatsoever and given to other private parties.That's the truth of it, and if you are honest, you'll admit that they redefined "public use" here.

As I said before, I don't want to get into the details. I haven't studied it, and I don't have the inclination to study it in detail.Your claim that "public use" was redefined seems wrong. The constitution does not define the term, and therefore this could not be a redefinition.Your characterization of this as liberal vs conservative is also wrong. Kennedy is a conservative, not a liberal. I'm not persuaded that there are any liberals on the court.

All the liberals, Souter, Ginsburg, etc,...voted for it.All the originalists or conservatives, Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist voted against it.O'Connor and Kennedy are swing votes, and they split.On the term "public use", they have effectively rendered that "any use." Can you not see that as redefining the whole intent of the 5th amendment there? The amendment suppossed to protect private property except where a genuine public use is needed. Taking from one private party to give to another private party changes that to mean "any use", and the end result is all private property is subject to politicians seizing their land. There's no rule of law protecting them any more. It's who has it in with the local authorities and can convince them their plan is a good thing.

I think I agree with you that the rulling has unfortunetly opened the way for govt. seisure of land. I have heard of recent cases where land was seized by local govts. and given over to private companies using this ruling as cover.However, I don't know if I agree that this is what the supreme court intended. I also agree with nwr that this isn't a liberal vs. conservative issue as I don't think eaither side wants the results. I just think it was a bad judgement.

But Yaro, how do you explain the way the vote was split. That means Scalia, Thomas, Rhenquist and O'Connor voted against it. So all the liberals on one side were for it, and all the conservatives were against it, and the swing votes split, Kennedy joining the liberals on this one, and O'Connor joining the so-called right wing extremists on the other.I wish I could say the more socialist members of the court were just ruling on principle, but take a minute to read about it. The conservatives clung to the clear originalist reading of the 5th amendment. The liberals cited rulings that had weakened that amendment, and then went further to weaken and turn the meaning on it's head, just as conservatives have been accusing the liberals of doing all along.How can you read it any other way?Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, and Kennedy ruled that "public use" means "any use" essentially, and took away the right to be protected from having your property seized and given to a wealthy developer.Also, the entire democratic leadership in the House tried to defeat Republican legislation to prohibit any federal funds going to cities that use this.Bottom line is that if the democrats have their way, what is going to happen is that wealthy contributors to the democrats can cherry pick areas ripe for redevelopment to some grand new upscale private development, and can kick the poor and middle class folks and anyone with less political clout off their land, seize it, seize their farms, and do whatever the heck they want, and you can bet if the GOP does not stand to protect people, the dems would do this all over the nation.There are tons of areas which could be turned overnight into very prosperous areas with a larger tax base for the city or county, if the municipality can move the older developments and poor and middle class folks out. Personally, I don't think it will hurt my business, but it's still wrong.This message has been edited by randman, 11-17-2005 02:13 PM

I don't know why they chose the way they did. My personal opinion tells me that 99% of everyone in govt. is in the pocket of some corporation or special interest. What the govt. does doesn't necisseraly represent the position of the people no matter what their political affiliation.That said, I wouldn't be willing to lable anyone on the supreme court as being liberal. Bearly anyone in our govt. is liberal. I think ralph Nader said it best when he was asked what the difference between democrats and republicans was:

quote:

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The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference.

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Well, it looks like the dems are hitting the floor a whole lot faster than Republicans on this one.I think you also are missing the point on judicial philosophy. The dems up there ruled this way because it's consistent with their socialist philosophy. They don't really believe in private property rights the same way the average American does.The conservatives do believe in private property rights so they object to any government being able to willy-nilly decide what's best and just boot people out of their homes and give it to developers.My whole point is that I believe the average liberal will be happier in the long run with the conservatives dominating the courts. There was a time when this wasn't so, back when the courts countenanced racism, but times have changed.

heh, I think the average liberal would be happier with everyone gone This is interesting to me considering that its conservatives that continually write laws giving away the airways to private companies, and legislatting the "little guy" out of buissness.If you ask me, it's a den of vipers. I have little faith in govt. farther than it's able to suit my needs.

First of all let me say that I disagreed with the ruling and feel it was a horrible precedent to have set. I think I mentioned it shortly after it happened, and thought it was sad to see some individual rights supporters on the bench do a reversal on this.Second I do not see where this would make anyone want another Scalia on the bench. The precedent you find so odious is the same one that they have used against everything, except in this case private property. I can see people being upset with the liberals on the bench, but not suddenly wanting to embrace people using the same bad idea on all other realms of human activity.Third this does seem in line with the hypocrisy of many far right conservatives. They care more about property rights than any other human endeavour. Thus they would protect this right, while ignoring this same logic in other cases.Fourth, you are slightly wrong about why they decided the way they did. Remember it wasn't just "govt" they were handing power to. Essentially what they said is that a local board would know what is best for the local property. Local boards would be made up of those local people. What that does is makes it very important for every homeowner to become politically active, so that a neighbors don't sell their home away because it would be profitable for most of the neighbors.Do you see the difference? It doesn't de facto rob homeowners of power to keep their land, but does create an instrument whereby a nonactive homeowner could lose that power.Of course I don't like that one bit anyway.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

That's just a wet dream. Why would they be willing to trade free speech and control of their bodies for the ability to not have their house seized? That's a net loss.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Actually, it seems to me the democrats are the ones always granting special favors to unionized companies and hurting the little guy as you claim. The Republicans tend to help the little guy, small business-people.But giving away the airways? That's not really what occurs. The fact is we have all benefitted greatly from private enteprise in telecommunications and TV. Without massive private investment, you wouldn't have your cell-phones, for example, and many things like that. So I don't think the government has done so bad there even if they have made some mistakes.

And what the conservatives said is it doesn't matter what the local board thinks because the 5th Amendment protects people from having their property seized for anything but a public use, and giving to another private party is not public use.