[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11972]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE KELO DECISION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, this Friday is the 1-year 
anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's decision of Kelo v. 
City of New London. And this decision has wide-ranging constitutional 
ramifications, most notably the grasping at rights guaranteed by our 
guiding document, the Constitution. That is the reason that we dedicate 
this week's Congressional Constitution Caucus to discuss this case.
  The fifth amendment clause, the so-called ``taking clause,'' the one 
cited by the Court here and cited by the city as well to allow them to 
take homes from various families away from them and give them to other 
private individuals, that clause, the power of eminent domain, that is 
not a positive grant of power to the government. Rather, that is an 
express limitation on the powers of the government. In other words, our 
Constitution expressly limits the powers the government has to take 
away your property or mine.
  James Madison once said: ``As a man is said to have a right to his 
property, he may be equally said to have property in his rights.''
  Our Founding Fathers understood that private ownership of property is 
vital. It is vital to our freedom and to our prosperity as well. Yet 
our own, very own U.S. Supreme Court issued a very narrow 5-4 decision 
in the Kelo v. City of New London case, giving local governments broad 
powers to seize private property from one private party and to give it 
to another private party, citing nothing more than a subjective claim 
of sorts, a claim of economic development and something called public 
benefit.
  But once again, the highest court in the land has shown its inability 
to interpret the Constitution and defend the liberties and freedoms 
that our forefathers so desperately envisioned when they established 
this great Nation. Instead, this unelected body just across the street 
seeks now to make its own law for the land.
  For over a generation, our judicial branch in this country has headed 
down what we call the old proverbial slippery slope of overstepping 
their bounds, and this decision is judicial activism at its worst.
  I bring with me tonight a book that is called ``Constitutional 
Chaos.'' It was written by actually a constituent of mine, a former 
judge in the Fifth Congressional District. This is Judge Andrew 
Napolitano. Members may know that name from seeing it on TV. And I want 
to cite something he that he says in his book talking about this taking 
by the courts. He says, we have seen in the past the proper function of 
eminent domain, the government's taking of lands for use by the public. 
And the radical transformation of the taking clause to mean public 
benefit rather than the public use. And this began, this change, this 
radical change began in the early 20th century, back from 1936 on in a 
New York City case.
  There the court determined that slum clearance would be a public use, 
that was a good use, taking away people's homes from one set of 
circumstances and giving it someplace else. And he says, ``This is a 
quintessential private use. The government took the land from private 
individuals so that other private individuals could use that land to 
live on.''
  Then he goes on to say, the Court blatantly ignored the fact that the 
Constitution uses the phrase ``public use'' rather than ``public 
benefit.'' And the Court concluded ``the law of each age is ultimately 
what the age thinks the law should be.''
  What a scary thought that is, if the courts really take that view 
that the law can simply change from age to age to age, and that there 
are no firm foundations from one generation to the next.
  Our government, both on the State and the Federal level, were 
intended to be limited with only certain specific powers being 
delegated by the people to the various branches. And the ability of the 
government to seize private property from its citizens far exceeds the 
authority the people have bestowed upon it. And that authority may not 
be changed from generation to generation to generation.
  The Justices in the majority, while they may have been well 
intentioned and trying to provide what they cited as economic 
development, had absolutely no constitutional authority to make those 
decisions. Certainly, not in the liberty-grasping fashion that they 
did.
  So tonight I come here and, again, I call for limitations on the 
courts' jurisdiction before every one of our liberties and freedoms are 
clutched from our very possessions as our homes now apparently may be. 
And in light of this anniversary, I recently introduced a resolution, 
again emphasizing this body, this House's disapproval of the majority 
opinion of the Supreme Court and highlighting other positive actions we 
have taken, such as my amendment recently to, in fact, a year ago to 
say the Federal Government would not use our dollars to help facilitate 
these actions.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, the United States, the greatest Nation in the 
world, must always remain a Nation where rights and liberties are 
celebrated, not a Nation where people live in fear of those rights and 
liberties being instantaneously taken away by unelected judges covetous 
of policymaking powers.

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