Oct. 18, 2005
 
EDITORIAL: Eminent Domain Abuse: It’s Here, It’s Now
 
Conservatives, liberals, and moderates rarely are able to agree on anything, but the ultra-controversial "Kelo v. City of New Haven" decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year qualifies as the great unifying issue of 2005.
 
Why?
 
Simply put, everyone, regardless of politics, wants some sense of security in an investment as large as the family home, farm, or real estate. Besides, Americans of all stripes believe in basic fairness, and that seemed flagrantly missing from the majority on the high court when they decided in Kelo that a private developer could--somehow--take over a family's private property if the use was for the greater good of the City of New Haven, Connecticut.
 
To be circumspect, it may stick in the craw of locals who want to improve a city's image to have a private property holder hang on forever to a piece of property that is "in the way" of something that could help the town's image and even others' property value.
 
However, where is it written that a stubborn small property owner has lost his or her constitutional rights to their own property? Nowhere, that's where.
 
But it is written in the U.S Constitution that American citizens are to have a right to their property--a constitutional principle that has been held sacrosanct in America since its founding.
 
The answer in situations involving the inevitable conflict of urban development and private property rights is persuasion, not coercion under an unconstitutional law or court decision. That persuasion will probably cost the local developer or municipal or county government a pretty penny, because the small property holder will either be genuinely reluctant to sell their property or may realize what a golden goose he has on his hands.
 
But that's just tough beans for those into urban planning and a cost to be added into the calculus for making a neighborhood look better. Why? Because ever since the English barons met at Runnymede and forced King John to recognize more of their rights, the direction of Anglo-American law has been for more individual rights, not less, including the right to property.
 
The right of an individual to be secure in their property is at the very heart of the American experiment. Take away that, and you might as well rip up the U.S. Constitution and take down Old Glory.
 
Curiously out of touch with the broad mass of West Virginia public opinion on this issue are office holders and candidates for office. True, the West Virginia Republican Party has certainly issued press releases on the subject and appears headed in the right direction.
 
However, we have heard barely a peep from Republican or Democratic office holders about what they intend to do to make our state code more explicit on what can be taken via eminent domain. Only one candidate for U.S. Senate, Republican George Johnson of Morgantown, has made eminent domain abuse a key part of his overall message.
 
Will Johnson be the only one who reaps grateful votes for his stance against Kelo?
 
We do not ask for much from our elected leaders in West Virginia; as a result, we do not receive much, either. But if the state with the highest percentage of home owners in the country will not join New Jersey soon in strengthening our eminent domain laws for the protection of every home owner, then we are truly paying the price for the kind of people we elect.
 
George Johnson of Morgantown is ringing the alarm bell like Paul Revere. Will we listen? Or will we wake up one morning with a summons from the city or county on our door, telling us that our home is needed by a private developer to spruce up the neighborhood. If you think this is impossible in America these days, you haven't been following the news.
 
Tell your elected leaders, especially your legislators: it's time to get to work on eminent domain.