Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Conyers, I want to thank you for not only granting me this time but for being my friend for many years. It is odd for me to be on the opposite side of you. This may be the first time, certainly, in my career that we have ever disagreed on anything.

Mr. Sensenbrenner is correct in that this will be the only time we will probably come together around an issue, but we've been together on this one for a long time.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1433, the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2012. This legislation on which I joined with Representative Sensenbrenner will restore the property rights of all Americans and prevent the Federal Government or any authority of the Federal Government from using economic development as a justification for exercising its power of eminent domain. Economic development condemnations have all too often been used by powerful interest groups to acquire land at the expense of the poor and politically weak.

As the dissent in the Kelo case pointed out:

To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings ``for public use'' is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.

Few protested the Kelo ruling more ardently than the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. In an amicus brief filed in the case, it argued ``the burden of eminent domain has and will continue to fall disproportionately upon racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly and economically disadvantaged.'' Unfettered eminent domain authority, the NAACP concluded, is a ``license for government to coerce individuals on behalf of society's strongest interests.''

The Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2011 will discourage eminent domain abuse by denying local governments that take private property for economic development access to Federal economic development funds for a period of 2 years.

One of the basic constitutional functions of American government is the protection of private property rights. H.R. 1433 will protect homes, communities, churches, and other privately owned property from predatory takers under the guise of ``economic development.''

Private developers and local governments that have a genuine project should be able to acquire the land or property they need through legitimate, voluntary purchases. If the project really is more valuable than the current use of the same land, then they should be willing to negotiate with property owners who are willing to sell.

Eminent domain abuse impacts both urban and rural communities, and it is past time that Congress acted affirmatively to protect the private property rights of all Americans, who all too often are not evenly matched to challenge private companies in lengthy litigation. Where the Supreme Court created ambiguity with its Kelo ruling, Congress must be clear: There should never be a legal question concerning the rights individuals have to be secure in their homes and communities.

With that, let me just wrap this up by saying I have been engaged for the past several years with the subprime meltdown in this country that caused so many families to be in foreclosure, and I have been engaged on that subject because I consider the home the most precious asset, the most precious possession that any American can have.

And so whether it's trying to protect people who got involved in mortgages that they did not understand, mortgages where they were suckered into signing on the dotted line because we had exotic products that had been put into the marketplace which caused them to lose that home, or whether it is the pure question of eminent domain, property ownership is the basis of our American government and protected, should be always, by the Constitution and the Members who are elected to come to Congress to uphold the Constitution and protect our citizens.

And so today I join with Congressman Sensenbrenner and others on the opposite side of the aisle in ways that I don't normally do, and probably won't have the opportunity to do for a long time to come, but today is important. We join together in the interest of American citizens who simply want to be able to own their home without their government intervening in their lives and taking their property and saying they are doing it in the name of economic development.

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