Each year, the state legislature considers a number of bills that address basic civil rights – that is, bills affecting an individual’s rights of personal liberty, rights with which the government cannot constitutionally interfere. One of those basic liberties is the right to own property. In the past two-and-a-half years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s dreadful decision in Kelo v. New London, the legislature has considered a number of bills designed to protect an individual’s right to own property without fear of the government taking it away and giving it to private developers.

Last year, the House and Senate unanimously passed a bill making the procedure by which the government takes private property more equitable. This year both the House and Senate are considering bills with substantive protections for the civil rights of Washington home and small business owners. (Many of these bills address issues raised by Washington Policy Center in its Policy Brief, “A False Sense of Security: The Potential For Eminent Domain Abuse in Washington”, published in December 2006.) What are the principles and reasons underlying these bills?

Citizens are fortunate that the Washington constitution already provides strong protections against eminent domain abuse. For example, our state constitution would prohibit the precise kind of condemnation that occurred in the Kelo case.

Read the full Legislative Memo here