Supreme Court’s expansion of eminent domain
Re: “Power of eminent domain expanded by court’s ruling,” June 24 news story.
The Supreme Court has rewritten the U.S. Constitution for us. By a close vote (5-4), the Supremes decided that a government unit can take your property to turn it over to a commercial enterprise for development. Previously, eminent domain was considered reserved for public needs such as highways or schools. Under this ruling, your house or business can be condemned to turn the property over to Wal-Mart.
This means that private property has ceased to have any meaning. And without private property, the concept of the individual is meaningless. This decision, for the first time in U.S. history, makes the government unequivocally superior to the individual. There can be no free markets, nor freedom of action, with the shadow of government seizure looming in the background. Carried to its logical conclusion, this decision means that the government can seize your wristwatch if it perceives a higher use for it.
David Neal, Arvada
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It is a sad day for those living the nightmare in the 12-mile-wide Front Range Toll Road corridor. Residents there have been living under a cloud for the past four months, waiting for Ray Wells’ company to decide whose houses and properties he wants to take for his private road.
Public use and public interest should, in fact, be defined nationally and not locally. The Supreme Court, in my opinion, seriously erred in its decision. Although state legislatures can pass legislation outlawing the taking of private property in cases such as this, this country shouldn’t have differing rules in different states about what constitutes property subject to eminent domain. It is simply not a democratic principle to take private property for private gain. If it starts here, as in Connecticut, where does it stop?
Teri Nilson Baird, Elizabeth
Rep. Salazar’s vote on medical marijuana
Re: “House denies bid to uphold state rights on medical pot,” June 16 news story.
I would like to express my profound disappointment over Rep. John Salazar’s recent vote against the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment which sought to prevent the federal government from wasting taxpayer money arresting and jailing Colorado’s licensed medical marijuana patients.
I work with a number of seriously ill patients – many of whom have cancer and other debilitating diseases – who have turned to medical marijuana only as a last resort and upon their doctor’s recommendation. I wonder if Rep. Salazar is aware of the shadow of fear he has cast upon these individuals’ lives with his heartless vote.
Perhaps most shocking about Salazar’s vote is that it directly contradicts the will of the 58 percent of Coloradans who voted in 2000 to protect medical marijuana patients with the approval of Amendment 20. When up for re-election, I fear Salazar may learn the hard way that there is simply no constituency in Colorado – or anywhere – in favor of arresting and imprisoning cancer and AIDS patients.
Brian Vicente, Telluride
School-testing industry
Re: “Survey reveals a school reform paradox in America,” June 24 David Broder column.
As a teacher educator working with teachers who are dedicated to their students’ achievement in our public schools, it is important for all of us to critically examine David Broder’s column. Broder, offering data from a survey sponsored by the Educational Testing Service, contends that teachers enact “soft bigotry” by maintaining low expectations for their students. What he neglects to say is that this same survey sponsor represents a billion-dollar testing industry that perpetuates hard systemic bigotry. Not only has this industry undermined teachers’ ability to teach because of pressure to narrowly focus curriculum on the content of standardized tests, the results of the tests continue to be used to rob public funds from schools and children who need these funds the most.
When will the testing industry be held accountable for the bigotry it perpetuates and teachers be supported to do the jobs that they want and are able to do for our nation’s students?
Karen Lowenstein, Denver
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