Missouri Eminent Domain Abuse Coalition

The Farm Bureau on the House Bill

The Missouri Farm Bureau has blasted the latest version of Rep. Hobbs's eminent domain legislation, which was passed out of the House last week:

We are extremely disappointed with this version of the bill. Compared to the legislation as introduced by Representative Steve Hobbs, this bill does not clearly answer the call of Missourians to stop governmental and private entities from abusing their powers in the taking of private property from unwilling sellers.

In testimony last year before Governor Blunt's task force on eminent domain reform, Missourians reacted angrily to the Kelo decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow private developers to gain financially by taking private property from unwilling sellers. In addition to addressing this issue, Missourians called upon the legislature to require advanced landowner notification of developments that involve eminent domain authority, to require fair compensation to property owners, to require negotiation for additional damages for expanded use of easements, to require the return of abandoned easements, and more.

We are unfortunately finding that the pledge by some legislative leaders to work for passage of comprehensive eminent domain reform has not produced the necessary results. We in Missouri Farm Bureau will now turn our attention to our state Senators with the hope that they will be more responsive to the public's concerns and Missourians' call for meaningful eminent domain reform.

MEDAC was less than satisfied with the initial version of the Hobbs bill, which left open several major loopholes for eminent domain abuse. But the latest version is much worse. At MEDAC's eminent domain rally in January, Rep. Hobbs, Governor Blunt, and other elected officials in Jefferson City promised us that they would pass legislation to restore property owners' rights.

If this legislation makes it to the governor's desk and he signs it, they will all have broken their promise. If that happens, MEDAC intends to make sure that every Missouri voter knows it.

Five Down...

Every member of the state legislature should be paying careful attention to what happened in Sunset Hills yesterday:

In Sunset Hills, where fallout over a failed eminent domain project drew months of emotional protests, Mayor Jim Hobbs and four incumbent aldermen all lost their bids for re-election.

The state legislature is now considering a pathetically timid eminent domain bill. The latest version is even weaker than the original Hobbs bill, which MEDAC criticized last month.

Since the Kelo decision last summer, politicians who fail to stand up for property rights have been consistently losing at the polls. If our state legislators want to keep their jobs, perhaps they should be taking the lead in offering amendments to the Hobbs bill that will strengthen Missourians' property rights.

The Face of Eminent Domain Abuse

The Show-Me Institute has a new article about eminent domain abuse:

The summer of 2005 was not a good one for Sharon Fitzgerald. On Memorial Day, she learned she had inoperable lung cancer. Three days later, she got a knock on her door.

It was Jonathan Browne, head of real estate developer Novus Equities. He wanted to buy her house. And he made it clear that this was an offer she couldn't refuse.

"He told us that if we didn't sell, he'd just use eminent domain and take our home anyway," said Sharon, "What could we do? With my health and everything and the chance to lose our home anyway, we didn't really have a choice."

Sharon and her husband Michael reluctantly agreed to sell. They wanted to get the issue behind them so they could concentrate on dealing with her illness. But when the time came to close on the house, they were dealt another blow: "It turned out that Browne didn't have enough money from the banks to close," said Sharon.

The article discusses how the Sunset Hills project pitted neighbor against neighbor, and how it hurt both those who wanted to move and those who wanted to stay. We need to prohibit the abuse of eminent domain for private profit so that this sort of thing doesn't happen again.