I saw this a couple of days ago, but my kidney stone-triggered; beer and Percocet-fueled mini-vacation had prevented me from mentioning it (or caring)…. So anyway here goes. One of the largest travesties perpetrated by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) was the 2005 eminent domain case styled Kelo v. City of New London, CT.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog (highly recommended) had this little update on Wednesday — it’s a scream.
It seems that Pfizer — for (sorta) whom the Kelo’s had their home strong-armed from them by SCOTUS — and quite frankly by government thieves down the federalism chain — no longer needs their R&D Center in New London, CT. Whoops! The Hartford Courant has the story:
Pfizer Inc. will shut down its global research and development headquarters in New London within two years, transplanting most of the 1,400 employees working there to its vast laboratory complex in Groton, the most dramatic fallout yet from the pharmaceutical giant’s recent merger with Wyeth.
New York-based Pfizer said Monday that it will try to sell or lease the 750,000-square-foot New London headquarters, opened near Fort Trumbull less than a decade ago at a cost of nearly $300 million.
Pfizer executives said Monday that job losses in Connecticut will be relatively few and that some employees now working in other states might be transferred here, leaving the company’s total employment in the state stable at about 5,000.
“We’ll still have over 5,000 colleagues,” Martin Mackay, Pfizer’s president for PharmaTherapeutics Research & Development, said in an interview. “It won’t be exactly the same 5,000.”
“But Floyd,” you say, “the house was taken for redevelopment — not to build Pfizer’s new research center.” True, but it was taken because Pfizer’s expansion was going to bring related redevelopment opportunities. Barely 3 years out from SCOTUS rape of property rights at the federal level (and many states have done the right thing to limit such thefts via state law) the economy dropped a big turd and Pfizer — like many companies — is looking to contract. Even in good economic times post-merger reorganizations are common.
The pending loss of Pfizer’s headquarters could also complicate New London’s effort to redevelop the Fort Trumbull area — an ambition that led to the city’s controversial seizure of private homes through eminent domain and to a subsequent bitter legal battle that ended with a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the city’s favor in 2005. Pfizer’s nearby headquarters was hailed as an attraction that would inspire redevelopment. But meaningful redevelopment at Fort Trumbull remains a dream.
Kevin Cavanagh, the outgoing chairman of the city council’s economic development committee, called the news “devastating,” but also said that it didn’t come as a total surprise, or shouldn’t have.
After the Wyeth deal was announced, he said, “you just had to sense that something was going to happen. The question was whether it was going to happen in New London or in Groton.”
Catch that last mini-graf? The Pfizer-Wyeth merger talks have been going on for at least a year. Less than 2 years after SCOTUS upheld the theft from Kelo the development project was already in flux. The property wasn’t taken based on any solid plan much less foreknowledge. It was taken on a whim of a hope of a chance. Reason #689,409 to be involved in politics at local and state level — as well as in federal politics. This is a multi-front conflict to reassert our rights.
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there was a similar tussle here in Las Vegas a few years ago.
If I remember it correctly, McCarran Airport said they needed to expand and was going to take some property and forcibly remove people from their houses via imminent domain….just north of the established property lines. Okay, fine whatever.
but what ultimately happened was that airport decided to go another route, sold the property, and, magically it was JUST THE RIGHT amount of land for a Wal-Mart SuperCenter which was promptly erected on that site. not sure if any of the residents of those houses ever saw a penny from that deal.
imminent domain is an inherently dirty business. Personally, I can no longer see a valid reason to uproot someone, especially for a private business. I mean really….there is ALWAYS a rare species of bird or fish that can be trampled upon first.
Well the good news, state officials around the country are coming to the plate.
Is the Kelo’s home still standing? Do they get it back? Can Pfizer be sued for all this wasted legal money?
Kelo was a disaster for property rights. It basically gave local governments a license to commit armed robbery, and runs directly counter to the Constitution. It’s a bad, bad and indefensible precedent.
But what disappointed me most was the reaction of the Left. I know, liberals feel that government does no wrong, unless a Republican is in charge, but here you have poor people being stripped of their homes to benefit private business, and from the Left came the sound…..of crickets. The ACLU declined to get involved, no doubt preoccupied with their eternal battle against Christianity and anyone to the right of Lenin politically. Here was a chance to work for ‘social justice’ in its true form, and the Left didn’t just swing and miss, they refused to even go to the plate. The only conclusion I can reach is that liberals are comfortable with governmental tyranny.
Perhaps liberals ARE fascists after all.
This shows that not only is this kind of (mis-)application of eminent domain unjust, it makes no economic sense. The city was speculating with this property. Leave speculation to people who can risk their own money. (And don’t bail them out if they go broke!)
Leave speculation to people who can risk their own money. (And don’t bail them out if they go broke!)
Where’s the fun in that? What’s the point of accruing power if you then can’t use it to personally enrich yourself? You mean actually work for and earn wealth instead of having it handed to me in an envelope inside a magazine or having info whispered while standing at adjacent urinals?
Which is why so much of local politics has come to look not much different from a crime syndicate. (Maybe it’s always been that way, especially in dense east coast cities, but only recently have we been treated to it in such open forms and obviousness.)