Help draft a letter to Congress about Land Grabs

[thereisnospoon]

Well, I have been trying all weekend to decide what to do about the SCOTUS decision regarding ED and property seizure.

What do you say we at THR quit bitching and start doing something?

I propose we draft a letter that folks can address, print, sign and mail to their respective Congresscritter or Senacrat urging them to take action. I know it may have little or no effect, but what if ???

There are enough people on this board who are intelligent enough to draft a coherent, nay, eloquent page or two.

Please feel free to cut paste add to and take away from...

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/....supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/04-108.pdf


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

http://www.castlecoalition.org/

 

[thereisnospoon]

Here is a starting point, written in three short minutes

Dear ______________,

I am writing in regards to the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Eminent Domain and the seizure of privately held property. While I am fully aware that there are times when the Government, at all levels, can and must, for the common good, use the right of Eminent Domain to perfom the functions outlined by the United States Constitution.

However, there has been an alrming trend, wherein local governing bodies have begun to seize privately owned property for the sole reason of increasing its tax revenues, which neither serves any purpose to the common godd or helps fullfill any role in the Constitution of the United States of America.

We simply can not allow this to happen and I urge you and your fellow Congress members to act to stop this abuse of power and senseless ruling by the Supreme Court.

Sincerely,


John Doe

 

[TarpleyG]

I think this is important and will have time to work on something later this week. Maybe post a link to the decision so others that are unaware might research. This day and age of judges essentially making law have got to stop--not only here but in other areas as well.

Greg

 

[NC Shooter]

My draft sent to my Senators and Representative...

The Honorable _____________;

The recent Supreme Court opinion regarding property rights was a major surprise to me. I cannot remember any time in my life being as shocked as I was when I heard this ruling. The use of Eminent Domain in this country has been necessary at times for the construction of schools, government offices, transmission lines, etc. Even in it's past form it was sometimes abused by taking property without paying full market value for the land.

Now with this ruling it becomes possible to confiscate property simply to give it to another private entity that will be paying more property taxes for the property.

The implications are horrendous and the potential for abuse is far reaching. I encourage you to take action to draft legislation that will prohibit abuse of this ruling.

Thank you,

Mark Shilling

 

[Gung-Ho]

And lets make sure these are snail mail letters. Email for the most part is just blown off. Not that the snail mail isn't. But at least there is a paper trail.

 

[Johnnybgood]

I E-mailed my Senators and Congressmen

I also phoned them, and will write letters tonight.I have informed them that those 5 judges need to be impeached, removed from the bench and defrocked. That I considered them traitors to the constitution. May not get me anything except a visit from the IRS but what the heck.

 

[GunGoBoom]

Allow me to reprint wht I posted in this thread: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=144354

Old Fuff, PLEASE don't be complicit in helping the 10th amendment be destroyed along with the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, etc.....What I mean is, yes of course the other poster is right that the judiciary (SCOTUS) *should have* used the U.S. Const. to prevent/limit this abuse of eminent domain by state/local govts. BUT, since they did NOT, then it is a correct course of action to change the law giving rise to the violation, more specifically defining what is a public use, to prevent further abuses. But this is the LOCAL law. We do NOT need a federal law that does ANYTHING as this has nothing to do with interstate commerce or the Congress's other enumated powers. What we need is to:

1. Contact state and local gov't officials and prompt them to pass legislation restricting the powers of eminent domain at the state and local levels, and
2. More importantly, impeach these SCOTUS justices who have abrogated their duty to the Contstitution, or, failing that, elect presidents that will appoint better ones as they retire....seems to me a very good reason to vote for Republican prez's, even though this particular arm of the Republicrat uniparty is otherwise quite repulsive of course (almost as repulsive as the other arm).

So, "write your critters" ==> right on
but "write your federal critters" ==> dead wrong - we need an extraordinarily smaller and more limited fedgov, which returns power to the states, where we might actually have a little bit of access and influence over politics & elections, which we desperately need as the population grows, to prevent complete disenfranchisement of the people from the remote central gov't. This is why Raich is such a crying shame given that it was also 5/4 - it is far far more wrongly decided than the eminent domain case - much more of a clear abrogation of the duty to defend the Constitution - a shameless vote of blind support of our fedgov's war on some drugs, at the expense of law, prededent, and logic, by the ordinarily-principled Scalia.

It's unbelievable to me how many of us have been knee-jerked traind by Brokaw/Jennings/Blather to automatically look to the FEDERAL gov't for an answer an injustice/impropriety. We don't need a federal anti-eminent domain law any more than we need a fedeal gun ban law. What we do need are:

1. Federal AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, overturning the piss poor decision just handed down, since the scotus failed to implement the constitution, but since #1 just ain't gonna happen, then please see 2 and 3, which can and probably will happen,
2. Replacement of some of these scotus jokers with jurists who have respect for law and precedent... this is done by who you vote for for USPrez and US Senate, who approves the prez's nominations, and
3. Get the eminent domain laws changed at the local levels - ideally, at the municipal (city) level, but failing that, then at state level, which would prevent municipalities from abusing eminenet domain.

We should *always*, in our political process related to *legislation*, look *first* to the gov't that is CLOSEST to the people for the answer to the problem in question, and only in finding an inability of the city/local gov't to adequately address the problem, should we look to the state govt', etc. Of course, as for enforcing the *constitutional* protections, since the SCOTUS is the final say on that, then we must always try to influence who makes it onto that body, since they interpret the const. as against both the fedgov and the state and local govs. But the judiciary, up to and including the scotus, only interprets the constitutional limitations in matters like these related to the limits of state and local govs - but specific targeted legislation at the local level which specifically forbids the taking or private property for anything other than demonstrably public common use facilities is what is needed - NOT more federal intrusiveness into our state and local affairs. Let's not confuse the inability of our SCOTUS to follow the const. with the need for another federal law. The us congress has no power over this decision whatsoever. The only thing helpful which could be initiated at the US congress is an amendment to the US constitution to overturn this bad ruling - now this MAY in fact be a good idea. But it's such a difficult thing to accomplish (formal amendment with 2/3rds of Senate and 3/4ths of states), that as a practical matter, it's a much better idea to simply change the law where it's written - at the local level. Thanks for listenin.