Schlafly Contends High Court Judicial Tyrants Redefined Eminent Domain: AgapePress, 7/26/05

By Ed Thomas
The controversial court ruling on the United States' eminent domain law in the case of Kelo v. City of New London continues to spawn outrage among critics of the decision. One Christian activist and constitutional attorney is saying the ruling is just the latest example of judicial tyranny run rampant in America.

In Phyllis Schlafly's book, The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It (Spence Publishing, 2004), she makes the case that since the 1950s the U.S. Supreme Court has been trying to usurp the power of the other branches of federal government over U.S. political, social, and economic policy. For the author, the Kelo v. New London lawsuit was another clear case of that problem, with the high court making its ruling in favor of government taking the land of private property owners for other private developers to use.

Schlafly feels the increasing liberalism of the Supreme Court is behind its willingness to rule in a way that ultimately increases tax revenue. She contends, "We do not have a conservative court. We have a liberal court, and this was a decision which helps government to raise taxes — and your liberals always like to raise taxes."

The author and constitutional lawyer says one only has to "follow the money to get the explanation for things we may not otherwise understand." Under this controversial ruling, she points out, money generated by taking land from the owner through eminent domain and redistributing it to another private entity would proceed to government coffers.

The Kelo v. New London decision is objectionable, Schlafly insists, not only because it is driven by liberal "big government" thinking but also because, to rule in the way they did, the justices had to re-write the constitutional definition of eminent domain. She finds this disturbing.

"The Constitution said that private property can be taken for public use," the conservative pundit explains. "The justices changed that to public purpose," the founder of Eagle Forum asserts, "and then they gave a very broad definition of 'purpose' which includes what they did in this Connecticut case."

Schlafly considers the justices' eminent domain ruling outrageous. She says the U.S. Supreme Court has put every citizen's private property in peril as a result of the judges doing something the Constitution does not give them the power to do — namely, amending the words of that legislative document.

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