Referenda and takings (eminent domain)
>
> experience here in California has shown that
> referenda can be
> corrupt(ed).
No shit. Like the Proposition 13 that has nearly ruined your state?
But the referendum process represents a
> barrier to the
> business/government eminent domain "development"
> bloc bulldozer.
How serious is the problem versus the costs that would be incurred by making takings (the legal term for what hapens when the power eminent domaion in exercised) more difficult?
>
> After long experience, people in CA read their local
> newspapers --
> including alternative rags such as the L.A. WEEKLY
> -- or listen to
> political parties and pundits to decide which
> referenda to vote for
> and against. There's currently a major
> predisposition among voters to
> vote "No" on all referenda.
And this is rational because? And it is best to make often difficult and fine-tuned ecomic decsions this awy because?
>
> That doesn't mean that people always make the right
> decision (far from
> it). But the people are supposed to be sovereign,
> not the judges or
> politicians.
The sovereignty of the people in a representative democracy is normally exercised through elected officials, like legislators, governors, and judges (in CA state judges are elected). This is a problem because?
>
> > What unit decides the referundum? This is not aa
> question to which there is an obvious answer,
>
> Obviously, the principle is that communities that
> are most affected by
> a project like that would get to vote.
OK, who are they, i reapewat:
Here
> in Chicago the expansion of O'Hare airport is an
> issue and will require condemnation of certain
> houses in nearby neighborhoods. Is the electorate
> Schaumberg and Rosemont -- the people some of whose
> houses are at stake? Is it Will County, where
> O'Hare is Located? Is it the Collar counties of
> Chicago, all of which use the airport? The state of
> Illinois? Etc. <
Who is "most affected"? How do you decide? The people near the airport who may lose their homes and neighborhood, but be paid fair market value? The people in Chicagoland whose jobs are at stake if economic growth slows because the airportt in a chokepoint? The passengers whose delays make O'Hare a nightmare? It's a lot easier to state this principle than to flesh it out in a sensible way.
so that generally only
> the up-staters would
> vote. Which fits with the idea that those most
> affected by the project
> should have the vote.
So you'd go for the collar county idea? But people downstate depend on Chicaholand's econbomic health, although they amy not like to admit it. Also since when do we get the principle "use it or lose it" with voting? So what if the downstaters are unlikely to vote?
> > Also, condemnations are quite common and routine.<
>
> if so, maybe the developers should pay a 100%
> premium on the market
> value of houses condemned. That would make them less
> common and
> routine.
Why is that desirable? If the gas company needs an easement in some farmland to provide gas to heat people's homes, whose pockets is that 100% premium going to come out of, and if it deters building the ipeline, why is that a benefit? Should we not have people's homes heated cheaply?
Eminent domain can be abused. I lived in Michigan, I remember what happened in Poletown. (Look it up, them as don't know.) But any power can be abused. That doesn't mean we should oppose any use of such power.
>
In reality, pipelines affect a number of
> property-owners and those
> owners not directly in the way of the line. So it's
> a political issue,
> not just a matter of one-on-one contracting. The
> pipeline company may
> also have political clout and so needs
> countervailing power in the
> form of a referendum.
My point about keeping it comparitive bilateral doesn't exclude politics, if it's just a contact, no one needs eminent domain. But sometimes someone may be unwilling to sell when a private project is publicly beneficial. taht's why we have a takibgs caluse in the Constitution permitting the exercise of emonent domain./
>
> >To politicize every such issue by calling for a
> vote on each issue
> would be a heavy burden on economic development and
> on the
> electorate. <
>
> I think I'd rather have political decisions made in
> a politicized way
> (open, transparent, contested) than to have
> politicians and
> technocrats make them "in our name" in some
> smoke-filled room.
Be basic conflict here between representativea nd direct democarcy. But a referendum ain't the Athenian Agora, and its naive to think --in California of all places! -- that the process is fair and tarnsparent. And it is overly cynical to think that even in a city like Chicago where there is clout that most of routine takings are corrupt. Morever, we have a version of Oscar Wilde's complaint that the problem wioth socialism is that it takes too many evenings. Frankly, I and most don't want to be bothered with that shit, my one sustained experience with a taking case (the Will county pipeline) did me for a lifetime. Most poeople, including you if you ahd close-up experience, feel the same way. Let the agencies handle it. If the property owners don't like it, they can sue.
>
> Who defines what "economic development" is? I say
> that it should be
> the people, not the insiders.
"The people." Who are they? Look, this isn't hard. In the real world, without profitability and economic growth, "the people" -- say working class people, probably my income is too high to make me one of them, will be unemployed. There are tradeoffs and some increase in profiotabiolity and GDP has bad effects. We have elected officials and agencies to wit\h the expertise to evaluate these questions and courts to contest their decisions, as well as elections to punish politicians and judges who defy what "the people" want. It's called democracy. Sure there is corruption and clout. Referenda don't change that,
I should mention at 20 some years ago in Ann Arbot I helped organize an antinuclear referendum that got buried when the other side dumpeda quarter million dollars on us. We got 33% of the vote spending $12K, which was actually pretty damn good, but I am intimatelt familiar with how referenda can be manipulated.
Also, I did a lot of antidevelopment work lobbying city council with public activism, and we actually stopped a housing complex 9subsequent, much later, built, but ina an acceptable way unlike proposal wes topped) and a boondoggle conference center that was also clouted up the wazoo -- there is still in Ann Arbor what I think of as the Justin & Janis Memorial Parking lot which was to have been the site of this potential disaster. So I also know that an active and motivated citizenry can work through representative channels to stop bad development.
> > Again, various "intermediate institutions"
> (newspapers, political
> parties, etc.) between individual voters and the
> government can help
> inform the voters.
But as I said, I don't want to know. I spent a lifetime's work on land valuation with that fucking pipeline.
>
> One of the reasons why top-down "solutions" relying
> on polticians,
> judges, and technocrats (assuming, it seems, that
> these fathers "know
> best") are so popular is that the intermediate
> institutions are so
> weak. But that tells us that we need stronger
> institutions -- "civil
> society" -- not that we should give up and let
> people make decisions
> for us.
Right, you don't like representative democracy. I do. That's the difference between us.
Brw,a further note: the takings power is a reminder that property is not a natural right but ultimately a conditional grant of the sovereign -- in a democracy the people -- and can be reclaimed at fair market value for public use. The left should celebrate the use of the takings power. The libertarian right is clear on thsi: they hate the takings power. Richard Epstein of the U of C even wrote a book, Takings, suggesting that the taking clause should be interpreted as broadly to protect private proprty as due process used to be. Read the book, it will hekp change your mind about whose side the takings power benefits.
jks
jks
> --
> Jim Devine
> "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go
> your own way and let
> people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
>
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