As the campaign for the presidency unfolds, candidates from both
parties are squabbling over who can bail out defaulting homeowners
first, and most. The mortgage crisis has become a central issue of
the Democratic and Republican primaries. “Saving homes” is now a
necessary mantra for everyone seeking the White House. Problem is,
they’re all trying to save the wrong homes.
In 2005, the Supreme Court issued its infamous Kelo
opinion. That decision held that it was constitutional for
governments to use the power of eminent domain to seize homes and
turn them over to private parties who would, in theory, put the
property to more economically productive use and thus increase the
tax base.
Public outcry was swift and severe. Polls taken after the
decision revealed public disapproval north of 90 percent. Citizens
in at least 40 states pressured their governments to reform eminent
domain laws in response. You’d figure that politicians in
Washington would capitalize on this wave of public sentiment. But
it hasn’t happened.
Outside of a few token efforts for show and some blustery
speeches aimed to placate the angry masses, President Bush and
Congress have done nothing in response to the Kelo
decision. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader when the
Court issued the opinion, peculiarly brushed aside talk of
Congressional action by claiming that the decision was “almost as
if God has spoken.”
THIS ABSTENTION HAS largely carried over to the presidential
campaign. To their credit, all five of the major candidates for the
GOP nomination at least have condemned the decision at some point
since it came down. Former Senator Fred Thompson mentions property
rights on the stump. Senator John McCain gave a well-publicized
speech on the issue last August.
Still, no GOP contender has afforded eminent domain abuse
anything approaching prominence in his platform. It is ignored in
debates.
Even these meager efforts outdo the showing by those seeking the
Democratic nod. The websites of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama, and former Senator John Edwards, lack any mention of
protecting homeowners against government seizure for private use,
even as homeowners potentially defaulting on loans take center
stage on those sites. A web search and a review of recent news
archives turns up no comments from these three candidates on
eminent domain abuse.
This collective silence is baffling for two reasons. First,
fighting eminent domain abuse is a politically winning issue for
both parties. With the GOP candidates each trying to
“out-conservative” the others, it’s hard to figure why none would
truly focus attention on an issue that finds something like 100
percent approval with the party’s conservative base.
Likewise, studies have demonstrated that the Democrats’ core
constituencies — poorer voters and racial minorities — are the
very people most typically affected by government’s abuse of the
eminent domain power. The “people versus the powerful” message that
lies at the center of each Democrat’s agenda could not find a
better vehicle than this issue.
The silence is doubly odd when you consider that the
battleground states that have decided the last two elections,
Florida and Ohio, have been the sites of two of the most
significant post-Kelo actions (an
overwhelmingly-approved constitutional amendment and a landmark
state supreme court decision, respectively).
SECOND, WE COME back to the mortgage crisis. As stressful as losing
a home to foreclosure may be, most such homeowners at a minimum
share in the blame for their predicaments. After all, many agreed
to loan terms that amounted to little more than gambles that, it
turns out, haven’t paid off.
In contrast, those who lose their homes to their federal, state,
or local governments via eminent domain for private purposes are
victims in the truest sense of the word. These people have done
nothing wrong other than live on plots of land that more
politically connected parties, and the politicians they’re
connected to, have decided the owners are no longer worthy of
keeping.
And now, to add insult to injury, the people running for
President are saying nothing about this travesty, other than that
someday soon, these owners must suffer the added indignity of
having to pay to bail out
those who have lost homes through their own doing by buying a house
they now can’t afford.
This is wrong, and the entire country knows it. Except, it
seems, for the people trying to convince us to let them run the
place.
