{news} Stamford Advocate: Eminent domain reform is overdue

Tue Feb 6 02:18:52 EST 2007

Today's editorial:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/opinion/editorial/scn-sa-editorial25feb05,0,6878187.story

Eminent domain reform is overdue

February 5, 2007

It's human nature to play for time when big issues need to be resolved. But 
big issues - like eminent domain reform - are what state lawmakers were 
elected to confront. Putting that subject on the back burner of still 
another legislative session would represent a failure in that 
responsibility.

It's not as though the state Legislature is unfamiliar with how eminent 
domain powers have become an affront to private property rights. The issue 
has been around in Connecticut for more than four years. The notorious New 
London property condemnation case that wended its way through the legal 
system to an unfortunate decision by the U.S. Supreme Court goes back at 
least that far.

In a nutshell, the courts upheld the notion that governments can take 
property from one private owner and give it over to another for development 
that would increase the tax base or provide jobs. It was an interpretation 
of "public uses" that went far beyond the widely accepted view that such 
condemnation should only be done when government needs to build a road, or 
school, or other public project.

After the 2005 high court ruling upholding such seizures, concern was such 
in Connecticut that state legislative leaders asked municipalities to put a 
moratorium on them until lawmakers could act. But not only did legislation 
die last year. It isn't even on the Democratic House majority's 
high-priority list for the current session, according to a report from Staff 
Writer Brian Lockhart. And the House speaker says no one need bother about 
the moratorium request, either.

Oh, the issue has not been forgotten, said the speaker, James Amann of 
Milford. It's just a "tier- two" priority.

Sounds like "forgotten" to us, as far as the speaker is concerned.

"We have so many challenges," Mr. Amann said of the lawmakers' priorities. 
Indeed, they do. Some of those challenges, like energy costs and education 
funding, are now critical in part because they have languished during years 
past - as eminent domain is doing.

To be sure, there are some lawmakers who maintain that eminent domain could 
be addressed in the current session. Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell's 
announcement she intends to pursue reforms may help make that come to pass.

On the Senate side, for example, Judiciary Co-Chairman Andrew McDonald, 
D-Stamford, said he plans to "take another run" at passing a compromise 
reform bill. Then he added: "But there are other issues that have more 
immediate impact on the entire population of the state, such as energy, the 
education-cost-sharing formula and universal health care. You've got to 
remember, (the New London case) gained a lot of notoriety, but involved 
seven or eight plaintiffs."

We hope that Mr. McDonald was not suggesting that an attack on bedrock 
rights is a matter less pressing because relatively few people have been 
affected by it thus far.

Further, it's doubtful that the situation would be viewed in that way by 
some other property owners, such as Nancy Esposito. Her Norwalk business, 
Casey's Sheet Metal Service, operates in an area targeted for redevelopment.

"I'm in the midst of this whole issue in a big way," she said. "I have a lot 
of contact with the public, and hear from people time and time again (who 
are) totally outraged."

According to the libertarian-orient-ed Heartland Institute, 18 states 
enacted laws restricting eminent domain in the year following the high 
court's New London ruling. News reports also said ballot measures favoring 
restrictions passed in at least eight others last November. And it is likely 
some states already had protections in place that made new laws unnecessary.

People in other states understood there was a big issue that had to be 
confronted. Connecticut needs to do the same.

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