After the Mississippi Senate passed Senate Bill 2230 today to restrict the use of eminent domain to direct public use, Gov. Haley Barbour released this statement tonight: "If the bill that passed the Senate today were to become law, it would be a major impediment to Mississippi's job creation efforts. Toyota would not be coming to Mississippi if this had been the law in 2007, and the Senators recognized that fact by an amendment they included in the bill."
The Clarion-Ledger editorialized against limiting eminent domain yesterday:
Misplaced political hysteria over a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that broadened the uses for which a government entity can take property for public use has a strange coalition working feverishly to neuter Mississippi's reasonable, necessary eminent domain laws.
Eminent domain recognizes that some "taking" of property is for the public good. Governments have traditionally used that authority to build roads, reservoirs and other public projects. The U.S. Constitution says governments cannot take private property for public use without "just compensation" and that concept remains intact.
The judicial process remains a check-and-balance to ensure that private property owners are protected.
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