FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 19, 2006
Contact: Jeffrey Mazzella
703-535-5836
ALEXANDRIA, VA - This week, a coalition of 75 organizations and public policy leaders representing millions of people across the country signed a letter sent to Majority Leader Bill Frist demanding the Senate take action on legislation to help protect private property rights immediately following the November midterm elections.
"Since June of 2005, American property owners, advocacy groups and everyday citizens of every socioeconomic, political and ideological background have united as one in defense of their Constitutional protection to private property," the letter reads. "Committed to correcting the United States Supreme Court's misjudgment in Kelo v. City of New London, everyday citizens have voiced their support for Congressional action to limit private lands from being seized for economic development by the government.
"We the undersigned organizations wish to, once again, express our support for Senate legislation to correct this injustice during the final session days of the 109th Congress," the letter continues.
Specifically, the letter calls for action on S. 3873, the "Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2006," sponsored by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), which would curb eminent domain abuse by withholding federal economic development funds from states and localities that engage in such abuse. S. 3873 is the Senate companion legislation to H.R. 4128, which has already passed the House of Representatives.
"For more than a year, the Supreme Court's Kelo decision has sparked a tidal wave of eminent domain abuse by states and localities all too willing to seize homes, small businesses and even churches for the purpose of 'economic development,'" said CFIF President Jeffrey Mazzella. "And for more than a year, the Senate has sat on its hands, failing to act on the pleas of the overwhelming majority of Americans who continue to demand Congressional action to help curb the wide-open floodgates of eminent domain abuse across the country."
According to a recent report by the Institute for Justice, in the year following the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, nearly 5,800 properties nationwide have been taken or threatened by eminent domain for private development - that's nearly triple the average annual rate of such takings in the five-year period from 1998-2002.
"In her Kelo dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's warning that '[n]othing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory,' is unfortunately the reality across the nation today," Mazzella continued. "Every day the Senate fails to act on eminent domain reform is another day that people's homes, farms, churches and all private property is vulnerable to seizure prompted by the whims of developers and local politicians willing to do their bidding. The Senate must act to pass S. 3873 immediately following the November elections," Mazzella concluded.
The Center for Individual Freedom is a constitutional and free-market advocacy organization that fights to protect individual freedom and rights in the legal, legislative and educational arenas. Since the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, CFIF activists and supporters have sent more than 50,000 letters to Congress seeking relief from the threat of eminent domain abuse.