Eminent Domain

The federal government on Friday set a deadline for Pennsylvania landowners who have refused to give up their property so that a memorial to United Airlines Flight 93 can be built. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told landowners that they have one week to reach sale agreements with the National Park Service before the agency exercises eminent domain to acquire the 500 remaining acres for the memorial, at the site where the hijacked plane crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Cruz Baca Sembello feels under siege by City Hall, in danger of losing the modest Baldwin Park home that she and her parents have lived in for decades. The San Gabriel Valley city is threatening to use its powers of eminent domain to force the sale of the home, with plans to raze it and several others to make way for a large shopping center.

Janitors in West L.A. went out on strike. Autoworkers in Kansas went out on strike. An entire Spanish pro soccer team just went out on strike. California voters should hit the picket lines too. We vote, again, on June 3. Only two initiatives are on this ballot, but they are way, way beyond our "citizen first class" pay grade. The vox-pop ballot plebiscites that ask us up-or-down questions about medical marijuana or the death penalty are swell.

The U.S. Supreme Court created a huge political backlash when it ruled that local governments could use eminent domain to seize private property and transfer it to other private owners for "economic development." Since the Kelo ruling in 2005, 42 states have enacted limitations on eminent domain -- not always effective ones. But like lawmakers in many other states, some California officials are trying to block real eminent domain reform.

Prop. 98 on the June 3 ballot asks voters to decide whether the state should restrict government agencies from using powers of eminent domain to force the sale of properties for use in private development, as well as whether to phase out rent control in California. A competing measure on the same ballot, Prop. 99, would prohibit government agencies from using eminent domain to take owner-occupied homes. It does not address rent control.

Californians on Tuesday rejected a state ballot measure that would have phased out rent control and barred government agencies from taking homes, businesses and farms for private development. While Proposition 98 was falling short, voters approved Proposition 99, a more narrowly drawn competing measure that prohibits government agencies from using eminent domain powers to force the sale of owner-occupied residences for private projects.

Backers of the defeated Proposition 98, which would have phased out rent control and broadly limited government's ability to take private property, vowed Wednesday to take the eminent domain issue to the state Capitol, in hopes of persuading legislators to do what voters would not.

Three ballot measures later, Californians still have inadequate protection against official abuse of eminent domain, and there are two groups that must share the blame. The Legislature should have acted after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo vs. City of New London.

When this city declared the aging Bohemian Hill neighborhood blighted and opened the door to the possibility of using eminent domain to redevelop it, social activist Jim Roos decided to protest in a big way. He hired an artist to paint a two-story-high mural on the outside of a duplex, turning a late-1800s brick facade into a massive declaration of outrage easily spotted from the city's major arteries.

For activists who seek to change the law, nothing works better sometimes than losing a big case in the Supreme Court. This year saw two small, public-interest law firms convert losses in the high court into wins in the court of public opinion. The Institute for Justice, a libertarian group based in Arlington, Va., made a cause out of the "abuse of eminent domain," referring to the government's power to seize and condemn private property.