[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11973]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE KELO DECISION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, one of my top five movies of all 
time was the 1968 cult classic, the original Producers. And, of course, 
as you know, that was the story of a Broadway producer who tried to 
find the worst play possible to produce a Broadway flop, and 
unfortunately it turned into a smash hit. And there is this wonderful 
scene where the producer Max Bialystock looks at the audience in the 
movie and says, ``I chose the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong 
actor. Where did I go right?''
  Well, to me the Max Bialystock of government, the Supreme Court, 
sometimes does the same thing, as their best laid plans and correct 
principles end up in something simply messed up. As my good friend, the 
gentleman from New Jersey, spoke a moment ago, this week will be the 1-
year anniversary of the Kelo decision. After years of harping and 
praying and hoping the Supreme Court would actually take the right 
concept and respect States rights, to respect the 10th amendment, they 
did it for the first time and once again got it wrong. For in their 
respect for the process, the majority of the Court forgot the 
constitutional principle involved.
  We have talked, as the Constitutional Caucus, a great deal about the 
concept of federalism. Federalism is not the same thing as States 
rights. Federalism is the idea of a balance between the national and 
State governments solely for the purpose of protecting individual 
liberty and individual property. States rights is decisions and powers 
being made at the State level, which usually produces the proper 
result, but every once in a while has a history of abuse of power.
  This particular situation, the Kelo decision, is one of those, where 
one of our good States in New England, both the local government and 
State decided to use eminent domain to take property from individuals 
not for the public good, but for economic development, a government 
abuse of property rights for the sake of money.
  Fortunately, the dissenters of the Supreme Court clearly understood 
it. In reading the words of the dissent on the Kelo situation, they 
said, ``If such `economic development' takings are for a `public use,' 
any taking is, and the Court has erased the public use clause from our 
Constitution.'' Further, he said, ``The takings clause also prohibits 
the government from taking property except `for public use.' Were it 
otherwise, the takings clause would either be meaningless or empty.''
  It was appropriate for this body, immediately after that decision, to 
pass both the resolution and the law condemning those decisions. It is 
also appropriate at the 1-year anniversary that we once again 
understand and review the significance of that concept of personal 
property rights.
  The Supreme Court recently made a decision this week dealing with 
wetlands cases. We are talking, as well as the Senate, about the 
concept of death taxes. Both of those have at their core the 
understanding of the significance and importance of personal property 
rights. It is right and proper for us at the dedication of this 
anniversary of this infamous decision on Kelo to once again restate and 
reunderstand our purpose and the purpose of this government, which is 
to protect personal property.

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