Eminent Domain Remains Controversial

“Eminent domain” is the power of government to acquire private property at a market price in order build roads, schools, hospitals, railroads, airports, and other government structures. In an unpopular ruling more than a decade ago, the Supreme Court held by a 5-4 margin that the town of New London could force Susette Kelo to sell her home in order to transfer it to a private developer. The city won that case and seized her property, but then the development fell through and the property sat unoccupied for years.

Amid public outrage following that decision, states passed laws to protect against government taking property for private uses. Georgia, for example, passed a Landowner’s Bill of Rights, which limits eminent domain specifically to only roads or other governmental uses. Some attorneys devote their careers to working on eminent domain cases, and more than a thousand reported eminent domain decisions were rendered in the last two years alone, mostly in state courts.

President Donald Trump, himself a successful developer, declared that “eminent domain is an absolute necessity” during a primary debate. His support of eminent domain did not derail his candidacy, but he probably won’t be exercising eminent domain as president.

It takes three to five hours to drive from Houston to Dallas, Texas, where the population is booming and road construction cannot keep up. Unlike the Northeast, Texas lacks high speed trains between cities. Entrepreneurs want to build a train that will travel at more than 205 miles per hour to reduce the transit time to only 90 minutes.

The Texas Central Railroad plans to spend $10 billion on this project with the goal of operating at least 60 trains a day between Houston and Dallas. But it first needs to acquire property in between these cities. It has filed 38 lawsuits against landowners along the route who will not cooperate in allowing the Railroad assess how much the property is worth for an eminent domain proceeding. A state court judge has set a trial date for July in one of these cases, which will determine whether this company has the power of eminent domain to build its railroad.

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