Emanate Domain

Emanate Domain – the power of government to condemn and seize privately owned property in order to use it for government purposes.

While this will be my first rant on the subject here, those who know me know that this is not the first time I’ve been fired up on this particular subject. Over the last several years there has been a dramatic increase in the use of ‘emanate domain’ … with MANY of the cases involving city councils condemning private property under emanate domain and selling that property to private developers for the development of private businesses.

The ABUSE of emanate domain is on the rise in this country and the American citizens need to WAKE UP and smell the coffee while we still have some private property rights.

The state government in Florida tried to pass a bill last year that would have given any state, county, or city government in Florida the right to seize any land through emanate domain if they could show increased tax revenue. So if the government (city, county, or state) can show that it could get more tax revenue from a new BMW dealership than it can from your house it can seize your house and sell that land to the BMW dealership. Now they do have to provide ‘reasonable compensation’ to the private property owner for the property seized. But it is the government that is seizing the land that determines what ‘reasonable compensation’ is, and it does NOT have to be ‘fair market value’.

Of course … the government maintained its right to use emanate domain for the traditional ‘public use’ as well. So if the Florida government needed a new police station, some new government sponsored housing, or a new road, they could still seize the needed land as normal.

In other words … they could seize your property for virtually ANY use.

Thankfully the word about the bill got out to the people of Florida and the bill was withdrawn without a vote by the state legislature. I can only HOPE that the name of the sponsoring politicians got out as well and that they will find themselves out of a job next election.

Well, now it seems its Georgia’s turn.

It seems that State Senator Eric Johnson has written up a lengthy piece of legislation currently referred to as SB5. The brief given by Senator Johnson seems innocent enough at first glance:

“The New Georgia Infrastructure Act (SB 5) proposes a sensible way to meet the needs of the citizens of Georgia in coming years without having to implement tax increases at the state and local levels. It would encourage the use of future anticipated fees and revenue to leverage construction costs by private companies today. This is the same mechanism used by business to finance their projects and developments”

But, as always, the devil is in the details. In and of itself, the bill doesn’t increase emanate domain specifically. It doesn’t give that power to private developers. Rather it gives private developers a way to specifically ask the government to use its police power to seize private property that they can not buy or are unwilling to pay the price that the owners are asking.

Unlike normal government projects where the government would have to propose the project, hold a vote, and go through a bid process to find a contractor. Here, the contractor comes to the government and proposes a project and part of that proposal is:

(C)A statement setting forth the method by which the operator proposes to secure any necessary property interests required for the qualifying project. The statement shall include:

(i) The names and addresses, if known, of the current owners of the property needed for the qualifying project;
(ii) The nature of the property interests to be acquired; and
(iii) Any property that the responsible public entity will be asked to condemn;

Replace the words ‘responsible public entity’ with ‘government’ and remember that ‘condemn’ is effectively ‘seize’. Now … what can they use this to build? “Any property which any public entity is authorized to construct, erect, acquire, own, repair, remodel, maintain, add to, extend, improve, equip, operate or manage under the laws of Georgia.” Oh … nice broad terms, and given Georgia law that equates to roughly anything from Apartments to Strip Clubs to Schools to Office Buildings.

So this effectively boils down to “Private developers can submit a project to build anything and let us know what property that they want seized to complete the project, and they can do so with a streamlined process that avoids public notification.”

Come ON people … Personal Property Rights are one of the main pillars of our freedoms. What GOOD is freedom of speech if the government can walk up and seize your house … well I guess it means that they can’t put you in jail for all the things you say when they do it.

This is an issue that EVERY American needs to be aware of and pay close attention to because it CAN happen to you, and there’s a pretty good chance that if you don’t stand up NOW and do something to prevent it, sooner or later the government will come knocking on your door.

Government abuse of ANY of its powers should not be tolerated … we have to remember that the government exists to serve us, NOT the other way around. The ONLY powers government has are what WE give it.

Eternal Vigilance……