Thread: Factchecker: Donald Trump supports eminent domain

Factchecker: Donald Trump supports eminent domain

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a news conference to reveal his tax policy at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York September 28, 2015. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

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OCTOBER 3, 2015 | 11:59 AM

Introduction

“The Supreme Court Kelo decision gave government massive new power to take private property and give it to corporations. Conservatives have fought this disaster. What’s Donald Trump say? ‘I happen to agree with it 100 percent.’ Trump supports eminent domain abuse because he can make millions while we lose our property rights.”

Source of claim

Television ad from the Right to Rise PAC now airing in Iowa

Analysis

The PAC supporting Republican Jeb Bush for president isn’t the first group to accuse GOP front-runner Donald Trump supporting eminent domain. Such supporters argue Trump’s record should preclude him from receiving the GOP’s nomination for president.

We’re checking whether Trump indeed supports the practice of forcing the sale of private property for private redevelopment.

As the ad states, conservatives tend to disagree with the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed New London, Conn., to force the sale of private homes for a private redevelopment project.

Under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, the government can take private property for public use if it provides fair compensation to the land owners. But in the Kelo decision, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in 2005 that private redevelopment could qualify as a “public use” if the public would benefit from the planned project.

In 2005, Trump agreed with the high court’s decision, telling Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto: “I happen to agree with it 100 percent, not that I would want to use it,” theNational Review reported in 2011.

Trump elaborated:

“The fact is, if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it’s local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make area that’s not good into a good area, and move the person that’s living there into a better place — now, I know it might not be their choice — but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.”

Before the Kelo decision, Trump tried to use eminent domain to his advantage in the mid-90s for a private project.

One example, often used when Trump and eminent domain are the topic of conversation, occurred in 1997 when he tried to use eminent domain to seize the home of Vera Coking, along with two nearby businesses, to build a limousine parking lot for a hotel in Atlantic City.

Trump sought the assistance of a government agency, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, to take her property. The agency offered her $250,000 for the property. When she turned down that offer, the CRDA went to court to claim her property under eminent domain. Though the case took several years, she won.

Conclusion

Given Trump’s previous comments following the Kelo decision about supporting the ruling, we give Bush’s PAC, Right to Rise, an A for claims that he supports eminent domain. Although Trump tried — and failed — to use the Kelo decision for his benefit in the 1997 limo park case, his reasons for supporting eminent domain can’t be verified.

Criteria

The Fact Checker team checks statements made by an Iowa political candidate/office holder or a national candidate/office holder about Iowa, or in advertisements that appear in our market. Claims must be independently verifiable. We give statements grades from A to F based on accuracy and context.
If you spot a claim you think needs checking, email us at factchecker@thegazette.com.

This Fact Checker was researched and written by Jessie Hellmann.

http://www.thegazette.com/subject/ne...omain-20151003

Vera Coking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vera Coking is a retired homeowner in Atlantic City, New Jersey whose home was the focus of a prominent eminent domain case involving Donald Trump.

Coking house at 127 S Columbia Pl, between the steel framework of the planned Penthouse Casino; photographed by Jack Boucher for Historic American Buildings Survey, c.1991

In 1961, Vera and her husband bought the property at 127 South Columbia Place as a summertime retreat for $20,000.[1] In 1993, when Donald Trump sought to expand his property holdings around his Atlantic City casino and hotel (to build a parking lot designed for limousines), he bought several lots adjacent to his property.[2] Coking, who had lived in her house at that time for about 35 years, refused to sell. This was not the first time Coking had been asked to sell her property for development. When Coking refused to sell to Trump, the city of Atlantic City condemned her house, using the power of eminent domain. Her designated compensation was to be $251,000,[3] about one quarter of what it had been valued 10 years earlier.

With the assistance of the Institute for Justice, Coking fought the local authorities, and eventually prevailed.[4] Superior Court Judge Richard Williams ruled that, because there were "no limits" on what Trump could do with the property, the plan to take Coking's property did not meet the test of law. But Williams' ruling did not reject the practice of using eminent domain to take private property from one individual and transferring it to another, which would eventually be upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Kelo v. City of New London.

Trump was not the only one to pursue Coking's property. In the 1970s, Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione had offered Coking $1 million for her property, which she declined, in order to build the Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino. Guccione started construction of the hotel-casino in 1978 around the Coking house, but ran out of money in 1980 and construction stopped. The steel framework structure was finally torn down in 1993.[5] At one point it was considered the most coveted home in Atlantic City for its value to developers.[1] Two other properties that prevailed against eminent domain eventually did sell: Sabatini's restaurant receiving $2.1 million and a pawnshop for $1.6 million; both became part of a large lawn flanking a taxi stand for the casino.[1][6]

Coking moved out in 2010 and to a retirement home in the San Francisco Bay Area near her grandson, Ed Casey. Since then Casey has tried to sell the house; putting it on the market in 2011 with an asking price of $5 million.[1][7] As of September 2013 the price was reduced to $995,000.00 [8] The property did not sell as Atlantic City continued to suffer the lingering effects of the financial crisis of 2007–08 and over-building during the boom that preceded it.

Coking's property was sold for $530,000 in an auction on July 31, 2014.[9] The reserve price was $199,000, a tenth of the offer Trump had made for the property eight years earlier.[1] Neither the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority nor the owners of Trump Plaza expressed any interest in the auction.[1] The buyer turned out to be Carl Icahn, who held the debt on Trump Entertainment, owner of the Trump Plaza. He subsequently demolished the Coking house.[10] The adjacent Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, the property for which Trump wanted Coking's property to begin with, closed on September 16, 2014 due to lack of business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Coking

The cities, states & federal gov't pull eminent domain too - it is a law of the land. The states have displaced peoples for highways etc. - a developer can pull eminent domain if a large majority of an area is derelict - better to rejuvenate than stagnate. Let us remember the roots of Mr Trump and his family's business - should he not know the rules of the land? Paleeze - he is a businessman! I do not find that unscrupulous but i do find our gov't's dealing as such because they ignore our immigration laws.

Donald Trump’s history of eminent domain abuse
By Ilya Somin August 19

David Boaz of the Cato Institute has an excellent article summarizing Donald Trump’s shameful history of promoting eminent domain abuse for the purpose of seizing property from homeowners and businesses who refuse to sell to him:

For more than 30 years Vera Coking lived in a three-story house just off the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. Donald Trump built his 22-story Trump Plaza next door. In the mid-1990s Trump wanted to build a limousine parking lot for the hotel, so he bought several nearby properties. But three owners, including the by then elderly and widowed Ms Coking, refused to sell.As his daughter Ivanka said in introducing him at his campaign announcement, Donald Trump doesn’t take no for an answer.Trump turned to a government agency – the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) – to take Coking’s property….Peter Banin and his brother owned another building on the block. A few months after they paid $500,000 to purchase the building for a pawn shop, CRDA offered them $174,000 and told them to leave the property. A Russian immigrant, Banin said: “I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?”

Ultimately, as Boaz notes, Trump and the CRDA lost in court in CRDA v. Banin, an early victory for the Institute for Justice – the public interest law firm that later litigated Kelo v. City of New London and other landmark property rights cases.

As Boaz notes, this was not the only time that Trump sought to use eminent domain to seize property from unwilling owners. In 1994, he also lobbied the city of Bridgeport to condemn five small businesses so he could build an office and entertainment complex that he absurdly claimed would turn Bridgeport into a “national tourist destination.”

On this issue, unlike most others, Trump has been consistent over time. When the Supreme Court narrowly upheld “economic development” takings that transfer property to private parties in the 2005 Kelo case, the ruling was widely denounced on both left and right. But Trump defended it stating that “I happen to agree with it 100%. if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and … government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and … create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.” The feral cats who currently occupy the condemned land probably agree. Trump did not merely claim that the decision was legally correct; he argued that it was “good” to give government the power to forcibly displace homeowners and small businesses and transfer their property to influential developers on the theory that doing so might promote “economic development.”

Both the Kelo case and Trump’s efforts to benefit from eminent domain exemplify a longstanding pattern under which that power is used to take land away from the political weak and transfer it to influential private interests. In the long run, as cities like Detroit have learned, such assaults on property rights undermine development far more than they promote it.

UPDATE: It’s worth noting that, on this issue, Trump has demonstrated even less respect for property rights than fellow presidential candidate and self-proclaimed socialist Bernard Sanders. When the Kelo decision was issued, Sanders spoke out against it, noting “the result of this decision will be that working families and poor people will see their property turned over to corporate interests and wealthy developers.” I discuss the widespread opposition to Kelo more fully in my recent book on the case and its aftermath.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...minent-domain/

If this forum wastes time, while one immigration schemes AFTER ANOTHER, is hatched from the depths of who knows where, maybe I should just drop out of it? This is not supposed to be a place to vent Party infighting., and miscellaneous conspiracy theories, alien encounters (the outer space kind), political hero worship.....

Originally Posted by artist

The cities, states & federal gov't pull eminent domain too - it is a law of the land. The states have displaced peoples for highways etc. - a developer can pull eminent domain if a large majority of an area is derelict - better to rejuvenate than stagnate. Let us remember the roots of Mr Trump and his family's business - should he not know the rules of the land? Paleeze - he is a businessman! I do not find that unscrupulous but i do find our gov't's dealing as such because they ignore our immigration laws.

That's right. It's very hard to re-develop these blighted, decrepit areas on your own. And even with eminent domain it can be very difficult because as in the Coking case, the property owner can win. Eminent domain is not a sure thing and it takes a long time. Most good developers want to be able to do it privately but sometimes it can't be done. It's why our cities have such a hard time with re-development of blighted areas. If they use eminent domain, they're attacked as evil people stepping on people's property rights, if they don't, they can't do or finish the project. Sometimes, these properties are key to the success or failure of the whole development. I can tell you this also, it's far better to make a private deal with the developer, you'll make a great deal more money with them, than with eminent domain. When you're paying property taxes on a $250,000 home, but want $5 million for it, and the developer will only offer you $2 million, if eminent domain comes into play, rest assured the city or county is only going to pay you what's on their tax books.

Originally Posted by Captainron

If this forum wastes time, while one immigration schemes AFTER ANOTHER, is hatched from the depths of who knows where, maybe I should just drop out of it? This is not supposed to be a place to vent Party infighting., and miscellaneous conspiracy theories, alien encounters (the outer space kind), political hero worship.....

I'm sorry you don't see this stuff as important. There are those of us that take the vetting process very seriously. Knowing the good and bad of a candidate is part of the process necessary for making a wise and educated choice come election time. Federal, state, or local ......I want to gather all the information I can to minimize the chance of regret later.

Eminent domain is in the US Constitution. The US Supreme Court in the Kelo Decision has ruled that state and local governments can take a property for an economic development project that generates new tax revenues in accordance with their own laws and state Constitutions. Raising this issue is not vetting, it's disputing settled constitutional law. States have the right to restrict themselves through their own laws or Constitutional provisions to prevent their state and local governments from doing this. So it's a state issue, not a federal issue, and has nothing to do with the Office of the Presidency of the United States. It never did, the Kelo decision is about the rights of states and local governments to take property rights from one and transfer them to another for a public purpose or benefit. If you don't want that in your state, then pass a law or amend your Constitution, whichever is needed to prevent it.

Originally Posted by artist

The cities, states & federal gov't pull eminent domain too - it is a law of the land. The states have displaced peoples for highways etc. - a developer can pull eminent domain if a large majority of an area is derelict - better to rejuvenate than stagnate. Let us remember the roots of Mr Trump and his family's business - should he not know the rules of the land? Paleeze - he is a businessman! I do not find that unscrupulous but i do find our gov't's dealing as such because they ignore our immigration laws.

There are many cases where property is taken that has absolutely nothing to do with the property being blighted. How would you speak to those folks? How would you feel if you had a 230 acre farm that had been in your family for 150 years and out of the blue local government decided they had a better use for it and used eminent domain to take it from you and your family? Do you honestly think that is right?

Originally Posted by MW

There are many cases where property is taken that has absolutely nothing to do with the property being blighted. How would you speak to those folks? How would you feel if you had a 230 acre farm that had been in your family for 150 years and out of the blue local government decided they had a better use for it and used eminent domain to take it from you and your family? Do you honestly think that is right?

Then take the issue up with the local government that's doing it! What does that have to do with the race for President of the United States??!!!