While the state’s budget will, rightly, claim most of the attention in the next General Assembly session, the sleeper issue will be the constitutional amendment on eminent domain. The measure passed its first hurdle in the 2011 session by winning passage by wide margins in the House and Senate.*
Before is can appear on the November, 2012 ballot, however, the amendment must pass the Assembly again — without changes. And local government lobbyists are aiming to do whatever they can to stop it. We’ve already seen that the city of Manassas is determined to fight. Now we learn of Spotsylvania county and the city Fredericksburg’s efforts to scuttle the amendment:
Spotsylvania County recently approved a resolution opposing the eminent domain amendment. The resolution says the county wants to preserve eminent domain for public purposes, such as schools, parks and roads, and also wants to ensure the amounts that localities pay private landowners for taken property are “reasonable and do not include speculative measures of damages.”
Spotsylvania’s resolution also says the county also wants to preserve its local authority to combat blight.
In Fredericksburg, council members have generally agreed on language to oppose the eminent domain amendment, said council member Fred Howe.
Alexandria, and Arlington, too, has joined the anti-property rights bandwagon, hiring its own lobbyist (for $5,000) to argue against the measure.
More localities will do so — if not directly, then through their associations, the Virgina Municipal League and the Virginia Association of Counties. Putting aside the notion that local governments are using taxpayer dollars to lobby against strengthened property rights for those same taxpayers, is the larger question of honesty:
Though the Alexandria council is against the proposed change, members support the 2007 law, said Bernard Caton, the city’s legislative director.
Ridiculous. The 2007 fight over the eminent domain law featured strong opposition from the local government lobby, as the RTD’s Bart Hinkle reminds us:
Not surprisingly, local governments oppose the amendment. Among other things, they worry about a provision stipulating that property owners should be compensated for the loss of business resulting from government takings. Does this mean they would support the amendment absent that provision? Er, no. The Virginia Municipal League (VML) and the Virginia Association of Counties (VACO) fought 2007’s statutory effort to protect property rights as well. The VML did not want to limit condemnation only “to pure public uses” and felt Kelo produced “the correct outcome.”
The locals don’t like the idea of anyone taking away their eminent domain club — by statute or amendment. And they will invent any excuse in an attempt to keep it, even when those excuses, worries and fears are shown to be baseless. As Del. Rob Bell told the Washington Times:
“The local governments were certainly opposed to the original statute and claimed it would bring along the end of the world,” he said. “Of course, it hasn’t. … We’re certainly hopeful that property owners will protect themselves.”
Indeed we should. And in this legislative fight, the entity they need to protect themselves against is their own (local) government.
* The Senate’s approval was long in doubt and the amendment was dead for a time. Only an unusual bit of legislative maneuvering by Sen. Mark Obenshain, and a surprise move by Sen. Creigh Deeds to strengthen the amendment in committee brought it back to life. More on that can be found here and here.
