Title: Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build a Foxconn Plant Source:
Reason URL Source:http://reason.com/archives/2018/06/ ... n-mt-pleasant-eminent-domain/1 Published:Jun 14, 2018 Author:Zach Weissmueller Post Date:2018-06-14 22:07:47 by Hondo68 Keywords:USA, Blighted by Americans, gotta go Views:1010 Comments:5
State and local officials are doling out $4.5 billion and 1,000 acres to lure the Taiwanese manufacturing giant.
Powerful forcesincluding Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), the Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn, and President Donald Trumphave aligned, to turn more than 1,000 acres of Wisconsin farmland and family homes into an LCD screen manufacturing facility.
Reason visited the village of Mt. Pleasant to speak with homeowners facing the threat of eminent domain, and the local government officials responsible for acquiring the land on behalf of Foxconn, which is receiving $4.5 billion in subsidies and tax breaks. The project was sold to the public with a promise of 13,000 jobs and billions in additional tax revenue.
To assemble land for the project, local officials have already declared entire neighborhoods to be "blighted," with the goal of seizing homes with eminent domain, a legal term that typically describes the process of taking property from a private owner to facilitate a public use.
But what qualifies as a "public use?" In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the Connecticut town of New London was justified in seizing the land of homeowner Susette Kelo to hand it over to the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on the grounds that it would spur economic development in an economically depressed area. The Pfizer project was never built, and the lot where Kelo's house once stood is empty and overgrown 13 years later. Public backlash led 43 states, including Wisconsin, to enact legislation protecting property owners from eminent domain for private projects.
With lawsuits planned, this project may test the strength of Wisconsin's post-Kelo law. Can public officials override the property rights of homeowners in pursuit of big development deals?
Poster Comment:
MTGA, Make Taiwan Great Again. Americans gotta go.
The Republican Supreme Court gave us Kelo, and since then, Republican Presidents and Republican-controlled Congresses have done nothing whatever to reverse it.
This would be a very easily passed constitutional amendment. The People do not like Kelo, and do not like eminent domain used in this way. It is a decision that favors special interests and big money. There would be no public resistance to limiting Kelo by constitutional amendment in any red state OR any blue state.
The only resistance to stopping Kelo comes within the ranks of politicians who get money from the powerful. If one wanted to bring Left and Right together at the popular level, there are no better things to take aim at than eminent domain and speed camera abuses. Everybody hates those.
The Republican Supreme Court gave us Kelo, and since then, Republican Presidents and Republican-controlled Congresses have done nothing whatever to reverse it.
43 states have passed laws prohibiting a Kelo happening in their state. Wisconsin was one of them, but that was before Foxconn came along. Now they're trying to renege.