AUSTIN — As someone born and raised on a cotton farm, protecting private property rights is part of my political DNA.
That’s why two years ago I joined a large majority of legislators in responding to the onerous Kelo decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not prevent government from taking private property and giving it to another private party for economic development.
In 2005, we passed a law that guaranteed Texans’ land would never be taken and given to the highest bidder for private economic development purposes. In other words, the family farm should not be seized simply because private developers have a vision for bigger profits from a mall or some other private venture.
Critics of my recent veto of House Bill 2006, which addressed eminent domain, have wrongly stated that I set back efforts to address the Kelo decision.
The bill had nothing to do with Kelo. They are simply using Kelo as a false, but convenient, whipping post to stir up property owners. Discussion about whether government should be allowed to take land for certain types of projects is an important debate. However, HB 2006 was not about protecting private property from being taken by eminent domain. Rather, it was about how much taxpayers must pay when private land is going to be taken.
I strongly supported HB 2006 right up until the final days of the legislative session before last minute amendments were added that would have cost taxpayers more than $1 billion annually and made condemnation lawyers fortunes based on frivolous claims, suing cities, counties and the state for any reason and any amount imaginable when the state acquires land through eminent domain.
No government entity likes to use the power of eminent domain. But it is necessary if we are to build roads, schools and health care facilities.
A reality often forgotten, or brushed to the side, is that every new road, school office building, park, hospital and home built in Texas has been or will be built on private property. That property, whether acquired through a private business deal or through authority vested in the government to impose eminent domain rights, is appropriately purchased — and paid for — at or above market price. The law already protects Texans when it comes to the price offered for purchase.
The most common misunderstanding I hear about HB 2006 is that it somehow would have protected property owners from having their land taken.
HB 2006 was strictly about how much the taxpayers would pay the landowner, not about whether the land could be taken. The bill would not have prevented even a single case involving eminent domain.
I have also heard from rural Texans the misconception that HB 2006 would protect rural landowners. In reality, this bill would have affected predominantly high-growth urban properties. Rural landowners simply aren’t faced with the issues of high traffic and decreased access to customer traffic that this bill targeted. In fact, if this bill had been allowed to pass, rural taxpayers, like all Texans, would have been forced to pay more taxes to fund land purchases in urban areas because of the increases in litigation.
I encourage the Legislature to continue to work on striking a balance that allows Texas landowners to be treated with fairness and respect for their property rights while asking their neighbors to pay a reasonable amount for their land.
Texas can find a middle ground, and it shouldn’t cost billions of dollars to do so.
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