| February 14, 2006
OLYMPIA…Because abuses of eminent domain have
become a major threat to one of the basic rights of citizens, to own
property, Senate Republicans today moved to pull Senate Bill 6388 to the
floor for a full senate vote. The motion was defeated before debate by
majority Democrats with a motion to adjourn, which takes precedence.
Senate Bill 6388, which was not given a public hearing in
the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee, puts into statute
very specific language as to what constitutes public use and declares: “No
government shall take or damage private land or any interest in real
property that is not to be used for the construction of a public use
facility or the provision of a public service necessary to protect public
health and safety.”
“The Washington State Constitution very clearly forbids
government entities from taking private property for another private use,”
said Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver. “Unfortunately, the Washington State
Supreme Court has issued decisions that allow privately owned land to be
taken on a flimsy and abusive construction of ‘public use.’”
Among those decisions:
In the Matter of the Petition of the Seattle Popular
Monorail Authority – the court allowed the taking of more land than was
needed for the Pioneer Square Monorail station to be used for
construction staging and employee parking. The land was to be sold at
the end of the project for private development.
Miller v. Tacoma – the court allowed unblighted
property to be swept into a “blighted area” designation and transferred
to private use as part of a community renewal development project.
Washington State Convention & Trade Center v. Evans
– the court created an “incidental private use” that judicially repealed
the absolute state constitutional prohibition against taking private
property for private use.
“These opinions have eroded one of the most fundamental
rights of our citizens,” said Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn. “They’ve created
loopholes big enough for government to push through just about any excuse to
take someone’s land.”
The only Senate measure dealing with eminent domain to
survive the cutoff for bills to get out of committee, Senate Bill 6701,
seeks to codify Washington State Supreme Court decisions that erode the
absolute constitutional prohibition against taking private property for
private use.
In this one-section bill that purports to affirm the
restrictions on the use of eminent domain in the Washington State
Constitution, the very decisions that have damaged this absolute prohibition
are cited as part of the affirmation.
SB 6701 was not brought up for a full Senate vote and died
on the Senate floor calendar.
“We don’t want these decisions to become the statutory
standard for the proper use of eminent domain,” said Sen. Joyce Mulliken,
R-Moses Lake. “We need to give the court more legislative guidance so the
dissents in these cases will be the majority opinion in future cases.”
“The United States Supreme Court decision last summer in
Kelo v. New London was a wakeup call for every property owner in every state
in the union,” said Sen. Stephen Johnson, R-Kent. “That ruling made it very
clear that a property owner’s protections live or die in state laws and
state constitutions.”
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For more information contact:
Penny Drost at (360) 786-7522 or
penny.drost@leg.wa.gov
Brian Zylstra at (360) 786-7399 or
zylstra.brian@leg.wa.gov
Brendon Wold at (360) 786-7536 or
wold.brendon@leg.wa.gov
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