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The Candidates Were Wrong to Take the Pledge
a katz/Shutterstock
At the first Republican debate in August, the candidates were asked whether they’d pledge support for whomever won the Republican nomination. Famously, Donald Trump refused (he since relented), while all the other candidates so promised. For once, Trump was entirely in the right and all the other candidates were entirely in the wrong: each and every one of them should have explicitly sworn never to support this gold-gilded clown for any public office.
If you haven’t yet had your coffee — and don’t have a history of heart disease in your family — consider watching this Bret Baier interview with Trump, particularly the section on eminent domain:
https://youtu.be/llkewCQ213E
Via Reason, here is a partial transcript:
I think eminent domain is wonderful, if you’re building a highway, and you need to build, as an example, a highway, and you’re going to be blocked by a holdout, or, in some cases, it’s a holdout—just so you understand, nobody knows this better than I do, because I built a lot of buildings in Manhattan, and you’ll have 12 sites and you’ll get 11 and you’ll have the one holdout and you end up building around them and everything else, okay? So, I know it better than anybody. I think eminent domain for massive projects, for instance, you’re going to create thousands of jobs, and you have somebody that’s in the way, and you pay that person far more—don’t forget, eminent domain, they get a lot of money, and you need a house in a certain location, because you’re going to build this massive development that’s going to employ thousands of people, or you’re going to build a factory, that without this little house, you can’t build the factory—I think eminent domain is fine.
Trump goes on to endorse — as he has before — not only eminent domain in general but the Kelo decision in particular, and with enthusiasm; there’s not a hint of reluctance or ambivalence in his voice (not surprising, I realize).
The forced sale of one’s property for compensation is one of those powers that should be justifiable only in a handful of circumstances, and only then as the last resort for projects essential to government’s core functions. In contrast, Trump sees it as an unalloyed good for the state to steamroll (literally) over citizens’ property for whatever reason strikes its fancy, including giving it to other private parties whom it designates as more worthy of it than you.
That any prominent American endorses such a position is frightening. That the frontrunner among the party supposedly devoted to conserving private liberty and property has done so should be unthinkable. Sadly, it is not.
Published in Domestic Policy, Law
See Jack Dunphy’s title below.
The immigration policy of the Republican Party will make this concern irrelevant. Get used to undermined property rights, free speech rights, self defense rights and whatever rights the left thinks are getting in their way.
Tom don’t you understand? Policy doesn’t matter, only rage matters.
They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.
I can’t wait to see how they’ll take it when Trump actually governs.
Jonah described Romney as speaking conservatism as a second language. I think Trump is using a tourist’s phrasebook.
Lol Trump on Obamacare:
“I would have a plan that would be a fabulous plan.”
Well, alrighty then….
His discussion of ED, was as horrifying as those ED commercials.
Anyway, other than that Mrs Lincoln he was 50% better than he was 3 months ago. I think during those long silences in the last debate he realized there was something going on out there and he did not know about it. Perhaps he was channeling Kevin Bacon playing Timothy Fenwick in the movie “Diner,”
Timothy Fenwick, Jr.: “Do you ever get the feeling that there’s something going on that we don’t know about?”
He does talk incessantly about opposing the Iraq War, 14 months after it started. Which I can grasp, I was against the War of 1812 myself (wink) after I had to flee the White House.
I dislike Kelo as much as everyone else on this thread.
I have a question regarding eminent domain: When was the last time the federal government exercised eminent domain?
Tom,
At first, I thought you were right and I shared the same feeling. I tend to have a different feeling about elected party members and that their obligations to the party might be. I confess that I don’t know where the boundary line should be. Voters are a different story. But I think that elected party members get some benefits from the party organization and I think there are obligations in return. I don’t know where that line is, but it’s not nothing.
On the hand, Republican voters have no obligation to support candidates. I think as a matter of prudence this should be weighed very carefully against the alternative. I have voted for a lot of people I would rather not have voted for, but I have considered not voting if certain people were to get the nomination. I haven’t been tested on that. I hope that never happens.
I don’t know when the last time the federal government used eminent domain, but Connecticut seems to be up to their old tricks. This time it’s in West Haven
http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20150524/controversy-brewing-in-west-haven-over-use-of-eminent-domain-to-pave-way-for-the-haven
Would that not completely undermine the entire point of why the RNC dreamed up this pledge idea in the first place?
This seems little different from the risk of having Trump run as a third party candidate when you have all his rivals attempting to undermine him if by some chance he received the nomination.
News could break tomorrow that Trump performed an abortion on an 8-months-pregnant lady, and, so long as he makes some disparaging comments about Mexicans that Ann Coulter can twist herself into a pretzel defending, he’d stay atop the polls. Trump is for eminent domain? Of course he is. He’s the greatest eminent domainer there ever was.
Did they develop the property they stole from Suzette Kelo yet? Could she buy it back for what they gave her?
Nope. Pfizer cut and run and the property still isn’t developed. What a waste.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420180/ten-years-later-seizure-private-property-kelo-hasnt-done-anything-public-shubhankar
“The Candidates Were Wrong to Take the Pledge”
It sounds like you and Mr. Trump think that they are all a bunch of losers.
As a part-time New London area resident who drives by the Kelo site frequently, I can report that it most certainly has not been developed. It remains vacant, which makes my blood boil.
So, Mr. Trump: No “massive development” (why always such extreme adjectives, by the way?), no employment of “thousands of people”, no “factory”. How do you feel about the Kelo decision now, Donald?
Slightly off topic, but, once again, we see that Trump speaks in a repetitious and meandering manner, like someone with a learning disability (emphasis mine):
“I think eminent domain is wonderful, if you’re building a highway, and you need to build, as an example, a highway, and you’re going to be blocked by a holdout, or, in some cases, it’s a holdout…”
“I think eminent domain for massive projects, for instance, you’re going to create thousands of jobs, and you have somebody that’s in the way…and you need a house in a certain location, because you’re going to build this massive development that’s going to employ thousands of people, or you’re going to build a factory, that without this little house, you can’t build the factory—I think eminent domain is fine.”
Of course, Trump’s language – once again betraying a limited intellect – is just a sideshow here. The important point, as Tom notes, is contained in the last six words.
He thinks eminent domain used for private development projects is “fine”.
So much for Trump’s image as a “billionaire for the little guy”. I don’t care so much that he’s willing to pay more in taxes so that other, less affluent folks may pay less. I do care that he doesn’t seem to understand that one’s home is one’s castle, regardless of whether it’s a Cape Cod or Mar-a-Lago.
It is true that people are in a reactionary mood, however, I refuse to be so forlorn that I believe Trump will be the GOP candidate. Maybe it is just denial (a specialty of mine), but eventually people want a plan that is feasible, active, and respects their rights. Maybe if he were running on the left, it would make me more concerned. I just genuinely do not see him as a credible threat to anyone but Rosie O’Donnell.
This shouldn’t be surprising at all given Trump’s upbringing. He was raised by a man that used eminent domain to knock out “hold outs” in order to create “affordable housing” as mandated by the Brooklyn Democratic Machine in NYC every day and he did the same for a portion of his career. Even then we need to consider the fact that he is a Keynesian by default given his economic prescriptions, he believes that the state should be able to steer economic transactions in order to “promote the public good”. He is all for stimulating/creating growth/jobs because consumption is all that matters to the left; it’s far simpler, thus making it a good talking point; even if the premises of Keynesianism are flawed to the core.
They’re getting ready to do so next to Area 51. They want some family’s adjoining mining land, and they low-balled the bid. The family balked, so they’re just going to use ED to get it.
So I have a question for those lamenting Trump’s stand on ED: many of them are staunchly pro-big military, no matter the costs involved, monetary and otherwise. So my question to them is, is it bad when President Trump takes your house for the new Interstate extension, but OK when the Air Force takes your land Because National Security? I’ll hang up and listen for your answer.
Trump would probably tell you that the New London people are incompetent, and if HE were the one that did the deal, the place would look fabulous now.
This is very much not the issue most of us have with Trump’s answer. Trump specifically referenced Kelo as a good decision. Kelo wasn’t about using ED for public use such as a freeway or a military base, it was used to give land to a private developer.
They are incompetent, but that’s another story.
By the way, across the river in Groton, Pfizer had a large office building on their campus there that they no longer needed. The company was paying taxes on this vacant building, which they naturally did not care to do. The city tried to find a tenant but was unsuccessful. So Pfizer tore down the relatively new, perfectly good building. I guess it never occurred to the city leaders to allow the company to suspend paying taxes on it while it was vacant.
Groton-New London has on one side of the ledger Pfizer, the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, and a Navy submarine base. On the other side of the ledger, the area has a large proportion of poor and unemployed citizens and a lot of subsidized housing to be supported by tax revenues. Pfizer has scaled back its operations, and a few years ago it looked like the Navy was going to close the sub base. The two cities seem to always be teetering on the brink. The ill-fated “Kelo” development site is a stone’s throw from New London’s main street which is full of vacant shops. Building “massive” developments in places where the existing real estate stock is underutilized is usually not a good idea.
I’d certainly be skeptical of it — as I am of most ED uses — but at least the stated purpose fits with an enumerated power.
I agree that the Kelo decision was wrongly decided, and Trump’s attempt to take the home of an old woman for a parking lot is the height of jerkiness. But … the practice of eminent domain is always one of gray areas. Most conservatives would be okay with eminent domain in the case of building a new interstate off-ramp, but would they be okay with exercising eminent domain in the case of an off-ramp for a private toll road? How about power lines? They are owned by a private company, but a large number of people will benefit from the power.
Where should the line be drawn?