New London Shrugged

Rarely has the disconnect between what happens in Washington, DC and the concerns of those in the rest of America been better bridged than last year, when the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Kelo v. New London. With disturbing disregard to the Bill of Rights, the high court ruled that the government may seize private property with the intent of rolling it over to another private entity.

The 5th Amendment clearly states, “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” And the terms established by this clause are simple – the public is protected from having private property seized for public use at an unfair price and the public is implicitly protected from having private property seized for private use.

But in June, five Supreme Court justices decided that the 5th Amendment could be carelessly thrown to the wind and that so long as the government had a general public use for property, it might be seized. All of the sudden the burden for condemnation is a set of private development plans that will enhance tax revenue or give people somewhere to shop.

As Sandra Day O'Connor deftly noted in a dissent:

Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded–i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public–in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property–and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

With the resultant public outrage, an idea was hatched. Logan Darrow Clements, of Freestar Media, LLC, applied to build a hotel on the land that is currently Justice David Souter's New Hampshire home. (I will refrain from providing the address, though it is now all over the Internet.) As an initial press release noted:

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

The sense of ironic humor is beautiful. And the whole stint seems to be far from a joke, as Freestar is apparently prepared to go forward with the development should they manage to get Mr. Souter's home condemned. You can even buy souvenirs from the hotel's virtual store (I have my eyes on the hooded sweatshirt).

And now the project is moving forward. As the Boston Globe reported in yesterday's paper:

WEARE, N.H. --Activists who want U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter to pay a personal price for ruling New London, Conn., could seize private property for a development project rallied Sunday in Souter's small hometown, arguing the town should take Souter's home to build a hotel.

The Washington Post filed a brief dispatch as well:

CONCORD, N.H. -- Angered by a Supreme Court ruling that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to evict Justice David H. Souter from his 200-year-old farmhouse. The group, led by Californian Logan Darrow Clements, wants to seize Souter's property to build an inn called the Lost Liberty Hotel. The issue will be decided by voters March 14.

(By the way, notice that the two papers carry different datelines. It looks like the Post missed the actual meeting and decided to file a report anyway.)

Ann Althouse isn't crazy about the idea, writing in a blog entry today:

I've got to imagine that the kind of people who live in Weare, New Hampshire don't like wild-eyed activists from Los Angeles and elsewhere coming to town and staging rallies. And physically impinging on a Supreme Court Justice is no way to demonstrate a concern for rights. You may think it's cute and you can get your publicity, but I'm writing this one down on my list of self-defeating protests...

But I'm actually a fan of the notion. While I certainly don't support the concept of public figures' private lives and property coming into play, it would seem such is the whole irony here as Mr. Souter is the very one who deemed the notion of “private property” to be an anachronistic convention from the framers' days.

Like I said, I have my eyes on at least one souvenir. And should the hotel ever be built, I might just add Weare, New Hampshire to a list of domestic landmarks deserving of my own tourism dollars.