Private Property Rights
PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS -- (House of Representatives - November 01, 2005)
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Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey). I am so glad that you pointed out about the importance of having the right people at the Supreme Court. I think that the judges that serve on the Supreme Court should take another look at the Constitution and recognize that their duty is to not make the law but to interpret the law, because in the Kelo decision, they trampled all over amendment five, or article V, of the Constitution and that is a right to own property.
Our Supreme Court, since the 1940s, has become a little schizophrenic on issues near and dear to our hearts. The right to own property, the right to have liberty before birth, the right to have one Nation under God in the Constitution, is something that is going to be questioned, the right to have public expression, displays of public expression like the Ten Commandments paid for by citizens, they are not clear on whether that can stand or that cannot stand.
Let me backtrack and say what I am talking about. See, for Christmas displays such as the crib or a menorah, you are allowed to put that on public property as long as you also allow on public property something generic like Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. But in my community in Adams County, when the good people of Adams County wanted to put the Ten Commandments on the four new high schools and they realized that because it was just all by itself it was too religious, they then garnered their money on their own, not public money, to put the Bill the Rights, the Declaration of Independence, other bodies of law surrounding these Ten Commandments to show that it was not isolated and not just a religious expression. But the Supreme Court said, no, you have got to remove the Ten Commandments.
Now we see the same schizophrenic reaction with the right to own property, and I would like to look at the time line in how we got to where we are today and to tell you why I am so impassioned about this.
This really began 50 years ago in 1954 right here in Washington, D.C., when the Supreme Court with Berman v. Parker decided that the city could take blighted property or property that they determined blighted, take it for a public use. But it was not until 1981 in the Poletown Neighborhood Council v. The City of Detroit that the Supreme Court really abridged our right to own property.
In that case General Motors wanted to expand their plant and there was some blighted property there, and some of the home owners did not want to vacate that property. So the city of Detroit determined that they would be better off financially by purchasing the property, allowing General Motors to expand their plant; and the Supreme Court agreed.
In 1984 they reaffirmed this in the case of Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff in the United States Supreme Court. But in 2004, the Michigan Supreme Court backpeddled on the Poletown case. And in the County of Wayne v. Hathcock, the Michigan Supreme Court said, wait a minute, you cannot take private property, not for public use but for a developer's use, and said, no, you cannot take this property because a developer wants to get rich. And this was very important to me, and I will get to it in a minute. But on June 23, 2005, all this was changed with the Kelo case.
Now, why should I care about the Kelo case in this second congressional district? Because of one resident in the city of Norwood, Ohio. Norwood is a great city within the city of Cincinnati, an old German city. And those Germans knew how to build homes. And I know that because my dad, son of German immigrants, built homes in Norwood, Ohio, 70 years ago, and they are still standing today.
He knew how to build a brick structure, solid as a rock. Some of those homes now are ones he built, but some of those homes are right next to a very profitable shopping center.
A developer decided he would like to expand the shopping center. So he went in and told the City of Norwick that he wanted to use eminent domain to take those homes. He offered those people a lot of money, and most of them bought into it because they are getting twice, three times the price that they could get on the open market.
But there is one old man who is 82 years of age. He does not want to give up that home. He has lost his wife, but he raised their children in that home, and her smell is still inside those walls. It is more important for him to live inside those walls, regardless of what money you are offering him, because that is all he has got left in his old age is the memory of the woman he loved. And yet Kelo would say, too bad, too sad, this developer has the right to take your property, to take away your memory.
I am going to stand proud on Thursday and vote for this very important bill. I am going to vote for it not just for the citizens of Ohio or the citizens of the 2nd Congressional District but, most importantly, for that 82-year old man.
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