Rep. Neese introduced HB 1024 concerning government impact on real property rights. Again, the text of the bill is not currently available, and I am going off of the digest.
[I]f an action of a state or local governmental entity taken after June 30, 2014, to enforce or otherwise apply a law or other regulation: (1) creates an inordinate burden on, restriction on, or limitation of real property rights on an existing use of private real property or a vested right to a specific use of private real property; and (2) the action does not constitute a taking of private real property under the Constitution of the State of Indiana or the Constitution of the United States; the property owner is entitled to relief, including compensation for the actual loss to the fair market value of the real property[.]
So, how much money are lawyers in the state going to make arguing over what constitutes “inordinate”? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) So, I think what is going on, as a practical matter, is that Rep. Neese is attempting to lower the bar on what constitutes a taking in an inverse condemnation case. In a direct condemnation case, there will always be a “taking” so the person is entitled to compensation. Inverse condemnation has to do with a government action that deprives the individual of the use of their property. It’s been awhile so I had one of these, so my recollection is a little rusty – but, generally, if the government impact is specific to the property in question, there is a taking for which the property owner is entitled to compensation. If it’s a general thing, then the owner is not.
For example, if the government makes a change to the road that deprives the owner of all ingress and egress from the property; then it’s a taking. If, however, the government changes the highway a half block away and eliminates access to the cross-street on which a business is located; it’s not a taking, even though it might have a significant impact on the value of the property. A gas station, for example, being more valuable when a highway is a half block away than it is if the person has to make a round trip of several blocks to get there.
Under this bill — at least if I’m reading the digest correctly; the gas station, and everyone else near the highway route change might be entitled to taxpayer dollars if they can successfully argue that the impact to their property is “inordinate.”
It’ll become known as the “Just Leave Things Exactly As They Are Because Everything’s Fine As It Is And I’ve Got Mine Act of 2014.”
Query whether a law saying that all businesses must have fire alarms & exit signs or a law prohibiting a prohibiting employment discrimination in hiring might not be the sort of “inordinate burden” that this bill might capture.
I think that the teachers need to figure out how this could work out for them. Surely this bill will reveal gold in those hills. I can see the ad now: “A highway being built or changed near you? Has this resulted in an inordinate burden to you? Don’t be a victim and get what you deserve! Call Duey Cheatem and How at this number.”
This bill has the stench of ALEC all over it.
You mean that the legislators haven’t spent the last six months rewording their original bills? I’m shocked!
I like it. It sounds like a good effort to restore and protect Freedom and to keep the meddlers at bay.
Of course you do. You hate freedom, as evidenced by your uncompromising support of private property, which is among the most insidious forms of authoritarianism ever developed.
The Declaration of Independence is a song of private property, and how beautiful be its strains.
If you do not champion, love and defend private property, the spirit of ’76 is not within you, and you are not an American. Being an American is far more than the cheap citizenship and vulgar taxpaying that today’s politicians would have you accept as its value.
Freedom is private property. Freedom is my ability to erect my fence and keep the whole world out. Freedom is your ability to do the same.
You, Sir, are a Marxist or some other nefarious, sooty demon sent to parade us into the fires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxnBSb4OKeU
No, it’s not.
I mean, yeah, 250 years ago a pretty strong argument could have been made that it was–the state of knowledge of how societies worked was so limited that at the time, that seemed to be the case.
But since then, we’ve learned more about how societies work, and thus the idea that property=freedom=property is no longer intellectually tenable.
There is no such thing as “society.” There’s a you, and there’s a me. You serve you. Me serve me. There is no third entity.
Currently if owner is unable to safely access or make use their property due to a willful refusal to “fix” a poor design or acknowledge pre-approval promises, what recourse is available? Keeping in mind property taxes are not abated, carrying costs keep increasing, etc – should there not be compensation to the owner?
Re: “Freedom is private property” — not so much. Private property rights are necessary and proper, but, make no mistake, they are restrictions on liberty.
As Jeremy Bentham observed:
“Private property rights are…restrictions on liberty.”
Seriously, do you listen to yourself when you say this?
Further, your premise is flawed, as private property is not created by law; it precedes law.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”
-Thomas Jefferson
Yes.
Private property is created by law. Without law, there are no property rights. Only stuff you are temporarily strong enough to hold on to.
“Self-evident” is code for “I can offer no proof.” With the Declaration of Independence, it was a particularly ballsy use of “self-evident” given that, up to that point, history was a long litany of men being routinely alienated from their life and liberty. Jefferson himself alienated a number of men from their liberty.
Well said, Dog. Without the rule of law, there is only the law of force and violence. And the frequent use of violence and force to alienate ofhers of property the believed to be their own.
“Private property is created by law.”
Private property is not created by law. It precedes law.
This impasse is not politely settled, and you find yourself in a country that was founded on a complete rejection of your unprincipled government by whim.
I never thought I’d live to see the day that Jefferson and the founding principles of America were attacked in America by an American.
Indulge me an answer: do you believe in right and wrong as absolutes?
“I don’t think so.”
Chilling. You should know that your unwillingness to accept the most rudimentary of laws will forever make you terrifying to most people.
Shortly ago, I read a couple of your sentences to someone. The response was blunt: “Scary.”
The statements here among the most radical thoughts I have ever seen expressed.
Said the tyrant to the oppressed masses.
You’re worse than a thief. When a thief steals, he doesn’t invent an alternate moral justification. You want to commit wholesale theft and murder and claim moral rectitude for the crime wave.
You need to read more. I’m pretty middle of the road in practice.
I’ll admit that my thoughts on property are potentially startling; but I think that’s mostly because, in my experience, people don’t give a lot of thought thinking about the nature of property rights. Property rights are mostly taken for granted. And, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing — it speaks to the stability of our society that people can enjoy the fruits of property laws without giving them much thought.
“Property rights are mostly taken for granted.”
Because they are the foundation of life, law, government and interpersonal relationships. It is that which is a priori understood and needs no explanation. Divested of property, all respect for one another and every legal arrangement immediately collapses.
Property is often the first concept a child learns. Property is elemental to survival. That which I kill, I eat. Take my kill, and you take my life. Perhaps you’ve never noticed that it’s an act of aggression for a man to make eye contact with another man or for a man to gaze for more than a fleeting second at another man’s possessions. To look at my kill is to threaten my kill. To look at me is your attempt to size me up to see if you could take my kill.
The only way we get along is if I don’t look at your kill, nor you at mine. Over time, I may grow to trust you, but not until such time as it’s well understood that you can be trusted as a man by having a firm respect for property.
Without respect for property, we are unburdened from respecting laws, as the laws are simply a foe’s unilateral force. If the laws are reducible to “you are entitled to everything,” then such a government is illegitimate and will be avoided, ignored and attacked.
If you want to be safe in your hovel, you must not comment on your neighbor’s 1,000 acres and six plantation houses.
There’s a very good reason why Vienna and the Plains of the Indians looked vastly different. So also why Manhattan was underutilized until Peter Minuit had the foresight to purchase it.
Now, let’s address the disrespectful matter. You’re in the presence of my thoughts, and you dare tell me I need to “read more?” Poor form, Sir. You ought be thanking me for your enlightenment.
If you want to be safe in your hovel, you must not comment on your neighbor’s 1,000 acres and six plantation houses.
Plantation houses. Or do you mean forced labor camps?
For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings lived in bands as hunter gatherers and shared tasks, food, other essentials. You are spewing nonsense.