(Long Island, NY) Shock Jock Erich “Mancow” Muller has railed against eminent domain for quite some time. On his nationally syndicated show, “Mancow’s Morning Madhouse,” he announces (sometimes on a daily basis) that the practice is immoral and contrary to American values. Many people agree with him, most recently the owners of the Deepdale Golf Club in North Hills. They are suing the village of North Hills to block the private club from being condemned and re-designated as public property. According to lawyers for the golf club, this is an abuse of eminent domain and should be blocked.
Eminent domain began as an issue addressed by the Fifth Amendment, which states quite clearly no private property may be seized by the government for public use without “just compensation”. The problem with the Fifth Amendment? There is no clear definition of what just compensation should be. Most judges would interpret the compensation portion of the amendment as a fair market price for the property, but this is subject to interpretation.
Today, the local or state government may seize private property (in exchange for compensation) and turn it over to developers under the guise of civic or economic growth. At one time, this practice was more limited in scope, but in the 1920s the Supreme Court ruled that cities could condemn slum areas using Eminent domain. A more recent ruling, in February 2005, included language that allows local government greater latitude to seize private lands for economic development. In plain language, this means that if a mom-and-pop tire store could be condemned to make way for a larger corporate business that pays more taxes, the local government has the theoretical right to make it happen.
The owners of Deepdale filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to block the village of North Hills from taking over the private golf course and turning it over for what it calls “public use.” Part of the legal action inspired by the village’s preliminary action to claim Deepdale under eminent domain? Accusations that a shady deal was stuck between the village of North Hills and a local developer that would let the developer build on environmentally sensitive land in exchange for capital to use on the eminent domain deal.
If the accusations are found to be true, many people would no doubt draw the conclusion that the village of North Hills is out of control and needs to be brought back into service “by the people, for the people;” preferably with a decisive vote in the next election. If this aspect of the eminent domain controversy in North Hills turns out to be something less than sinister, it still does not lay to rest the suspicion that, under such use of the eminent domain laws, no private property is truly safe.
Eminent domain, as Mancow Muller says, is a serious issue which affects the central character of the nation as put into law by the founding fathers. It may be strange to hear a morning radio show host discussing such a serious political issue in the ‘prime time’ of an otherwise zany radio program, but more and more Americans find themselves affected by the issue, and not for the better.
America operates on a very basic set of assumptions that are threatened by eminent domain in general, and the way North Hills officials are conducting themselves in particular. The village seeks to condemn the Deepdale course, then turn it over for public use, presumably as a municipal golf course. One problem apparent to anyone not drowning in a sea of legalese, politics-as-usual, and lawyer-think; how can the city condemn a property one moment, then declare it fit for public use in the next?
Private golf clubs are by their very nature, exclusive. A membership fee implies the desire to keep memberships to a certain number, or at the very least under a tighter control in terms of requirements, behavior or membership duties than a business open to the public. Even if the requirement of a membership is a formality, it still excludes the public at large in favor of a smaller minority. Regardless of whether this is desirable or not, private property is just that–private. If a home or land buy is threatened by the notion of whether or not the government at the local, state, or federal level can simply step in and buy out the land with no consent from the owner, the entire system of real estate in America is in jeopardy. Land values may not reflect this danger today, tomorrow, or even in five years—but if the current trend of eminent domain abuse continues, the incentive for Americans to own land will certainly be lowered. The Supreme Court made the current situation possible by setting legal precedent. While it is up to local governments to decide if and when to invoke eminent domain, the Supreme Court may be needed to give a major ‘course correction’ for the entire nation. In the meantime, American landowners ignore this issue at their peril.
