Using Eminent Domain to Personally Benefit the Mayor Is Unconstitutional
“The Guam trial court held the taking unconstitutional, but Guam’s Supreme Court reversed the holding by purportedly applying Kelo’s standard of judicial deference. Mr. Ilagan is now petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case, asking the Court whether it wants to allow other courts to use Kelo to cross the final bridge in eviscerating the Takings Clause — the blatantly pretextual taking of private property to give it to a public official.
Cato has joined the National Federation of Independent Business, 10 other organizations, and a group of constitutional and property law professors, on an amicus brief arguing that the Court should take the case in order to clarify, if not overrule, the broad language of Kelo. Kelo itself says that the government may not “take property under the mere pretext of a public purpose, when its actual purpose was to bestow a private benefit.”
Shapiro, Ilya and Trevor Burrus. Cato Institute 8 January 2013.