Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005
PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS PROTECTION ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - November 03, 2005)
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, as you can see, this is not a Democrat-Republican issue. The people who care about property rights, the people who respect homeownership, the people who believe that this is an important value are standing up for the citizens of this country. Folks who believe that somehow the government has a right to take private property for private use are standing on the side of the developers.
While I respect Members on both sides of the aisle, I have had some Members on this side of the aisle talk about what they have done for poor people, and you will hear people talk about what they do for minorities, that they are doing this to get rid of blight, to create better communities. Well, on this one, I would like to say to all of my would-be friends who are helping poor communities and minority communities, we do not need you on this one.
We need you to respect the right of those minorities and those poor people to hold on to whatever it is they own, whether it is a little, small business or whether it is a two-room shack or a one-room shack or whatever it is. It is theirs. They have a right to it. And no one, no mayor, no city council member, no one has the right to think they know better; that they can take that property for a private use.
I think it is unconscionable for anybody that is elected by the people to undermine the people by supporting the taking of private properties for private use. I would hope even those Members who have been past mayors, who have been past city council members who agreed with the developers, indeed listen to this debate here on the floor today and agree that if we want to do anything to support the right of citizens to own property, we will support this bill.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I am not opposed to the amendment, and I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.
The Acting CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from California?
There was no objection.
The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin.
This amendment does not change the bill in any substantive way. Rather, this amendment seeks to clarify some of the exceptions that provide for the use of eminent domain for those uses that have traditionally been considered for a public purpose.
This amendment also enhances the sense of congress provision and points out that the bill does nothing to restrict the Federal Government from fulfilling its obligation under current law when it exercises eminent domain.
Most importantly, this amendment serves to reflect the bipartisan interests of the various committees that have been at the forefront of this issue, Agriculture, Resources and Judiciary. I am pleased that we have been able to work together on what I feel is an appropriate response to the Kelo decision.
I just want to say to Chairman Sensenbrenner, you know how strongly I feel about this issue. And while I offered some amendments in committee so that there would be absolutely no exceptions, I think that if we are able to pass this bill today we will have taken a giant step to stop what I think is a wrongheaded decision by the Supreme Court. So I am willing to certainly support the chairman's amendment, and if we have to continue to work on this issue to get to where I want to be with no exceptions, then I will look forward to working with the gentleman in the future on it.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully offer this statement against the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York. Essentially, this amendment eliminates the teeth of this bill: the denial of Federal funds for 2 fiscal years to those States and cities that have violated this act. The denial of Federal economic development funds should serve as a real deterrent for those States and cities that want to exercise eminent domain for development, that is, the taking of private property for private use. Without this provision, this bill will not be taken seriously, and the eminent domain abuses that many in this country are complaining about will continue.
I just waved before my colleagues a list of over 125 cases of the taking of private land for private use, or attempts to do that; and I think the bill that we have before us today will stop this kind of abuse of eminent domain.
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment would help property owners by putting the burden of proof on the government to show that it is not abusing eminent domain by taking private property for a private use. It is a good amendment, and I support it.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I support this amendment also. I am tired of poor people and working people having to go and find lawyers and pay them. Who can afford $250 and $300 an hour? The average poor person certainly cannot. So you are right, let us put it on the entity that is trying to pull these tricks in the first place to take these properties away from these citizens.
So I support the amendment.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully offer this statement against the amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).
Mr. Chairman, this amendment seeks to prohibit a taking of private property only when the taking's primary purpose is economic development, maybe for the parking lots he described.
I am fearful that such an amendment would create a loophole for States and cities, allowing them to take property in a manner that is inconsistent with this Act, by arguing that the economic benefits of the taking were incidental rather than primary.
Also, this amendment seeks to confine property owners to a 7-year period in which they must bring a suit under this Act. This means that an owner who has had his or her property taken better hope that the State or the city puts the property to use in 7 years. If a State or city takes property for a public purpose, sits on it for 8 years and then puts it to use for economic development, the owner has no recourse.
Mr. Chairman, I do not think that you can argue that the statute of limitations is too long. These people, citizens buy their homes, and they expect to live in them for life. They do not expect someone to come along and say that we have decided that we are going to give it to someone else, a developer to develop for private purposes to make money on.
So I would ask my colleagues to reject this amendment.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner). This is the most dangerous of all the amendments that have been offered today.
We take up the Private Property Rights Protection Act today in an effort to provide all property owners with greater protections. The Turner amendment will essentially create a blight exception. By prohibiting the use of eminent domain for economic development in almost all instances except blight, we make blighted communities an easy target for States and cities.
This is why the NAACP supports this bill also. Too many of our communities, the minority, the elderly and the low-income have witnessed an abuse of eminent domain powers. Given this history of abuse, we would like all legislative responses to Kelo to be sensitive to that.
Historically and today, it has been too easy to characterize minority, elderly or low-income communities as blighted for eminent domain purposes and subject them to the will of the government. If legislative proposals contain language that could potentially excluding these communities from protection against eminent domain abuses, we have failed to be sensitive to the interests of this constituency.
These communities should be afforded the same rights and protections all homeowners, business owners, and other property owners will be afforded in a Federal policy response to Kelo.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I claimed this time to raise some concerns about the amendment offered by the gentleman from California. I believe the gentleman from California and the gentlewoman from Texas have a sincere interest in furthering this Nation's development of brownfields, land that is difficult to expand because of environmental contamination. However, I believe that such development is already protected under the bill.
First, this bill will provide an exception for removing harmful uses of land provided such uses constitute an immediate threat to health and safety. If land truly constitutes a brownfield, then it meets this exception.
Second, brownfields are often acquired by clearing title on, for example, old industrial property where ownership exchanged numerous times without proper recording. The bill creates an exception for clearing defective claims of title; and, again, brownfields would be protected.
Brownfields are also protected under the abandoned property exception that is in the bill. Owners often abandon these properties to escape liability. I am confident that there are sufficient protections in this bill for brownfields in question if an additional exception needs to be created.
We do not want cities to now use the brownfields label as an excuse to take private property and turn it over to a private business or developer. Worse yet, we do not want brownfields to become the modern-day blight exception.
You can see that we have heard requests for any number of exceptions, and if we stayed on this floor for 24 hours or 48 hours, more Members, perhaps, could think of reasons why you should take private land for private use. I maintain that if you want to package land or you want to acquire land, you have to work within the marketplace to do it. You have to go out, you have to find the owners, you have to negotiate market rates, you ``have'' to convince people it is for good uses. You have to work. And you have to engage in order to acquire land. You cannot simply come up with every excuse that is convenient to mayors and city council members and to developers to take people's private land.
If it is private, if it is owned, whether it is residence or business or ``vacant'' land, whatever, it belongs to somebody, somebody paid for it. They have a right to it. The government does not have the right to take it. And so I would simply be opposed to yet another request for an exception to this very good bill that is put forth to protect the citizens of the States.
I commend the chairman and those of us on both sides of the aisle for stepping forward in the manner that we have in a timely fashion to say no.
I have often criticized my friends on the opposite side of the aisle for accusing courts and the Supreme Court of creating law, of creating legislation. They did it on this one. They absolutely did. The Constitution simply says that you must compensate for the taking of land for public use.
We are not opposed to eminent domain for public use. I question it from time to time, but that is not what this is all about. This is about the taking of private land for private use.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.
I respect the gentleman's request for yet another exception, but I oppose it. I think that the chairman and the framers of this legislation have been very responsible in the way that we have tried to advance a piece of legislation to protect the citizens of this Nation from a bad Supreme Court decision.
A lot of people may be inconvenienced by our bill, people who want to acquire property, people who want to take private property for a development, people who want to make money, people who will use any means necessary by which to gain property that they think will help to bring them additional profits. There are a lot of reasons why people will be inconvenienced by this bill.
The bottom line is we do not wish to continue to abuse and inconvenience, marginalize and deny property owners of this country. We feel that our number one responsibility is to the property owners. We are elected to represent our citizens in the best way possible. There is no better way to represent citizens than to say we stand with you in the ownership of the land that you have bought, that you have inherited, that you have invested in.
We know a lot of people may not like it. It may inconvenience some people. You may not be able to build that parking lot, you may not be able to develop that shopping center, but we stand with the people against those kind of inconveniences. We ask for a ``no'' on the gentleman's amendment.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I would first like to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner for accepting the gentlewoman's amendment, and I would like to thank her for this very timely amendment.
While we began to work on this simply because of the Supreme Court decision and the danger that American citizens' homes and lands were placed in with this decision, the gentlewoman is absolutely right: We have to take another step to protect those victims of Katrina.
There has been a lot of discussion from homeowners and others who are observing what is going on and what could possibly happen, wondering if there are not schemes already going on that would deny these homeowners who have lost their homes the ability to hold on to that land, whether or not the speculators are cooking up schemes with those in local government even. So this amendment would protect the victims of Katrina, and they will be very grateful for this, and they will be very, very thankful that the gentlewoman provided the leadership in thinking about them as this legislation was winding its way through the government of the United States of America.
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