Eminent domain change merits ‘yes’

ON ITS FACE, constitutional Amendment No. 5 protects people from being forced to sell their property for private development that the state or local government thinks is more valuable. It’s a reaction to last year’s U.S. Supreme Court Kelo ruling, which said there’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution to stop that.

At issue is whether government can condemn property for a “public purpose” such as growing the tax base by replacing your modest home with a McMansion, or whether that power should be limited to such “public use” as roads, schools or other government projects.

South Carolina’s constitution already restricts eminent domain to “public use.” Our state high court refused to let Jasper County condemn property for a port terminal because it would be owned by a private company rather than the county or state and therefore “does not meet our restrictive definition of public use.”

Legislators argue that the court could change its position, and so they want to make the requirement for “public use” of condemned property more explicit. They also propose to strip the constitution of a few pages of overly specific language that’s out of place in any constitution. Some lawmakers tried to use the Kelo ruling as an excuse to strip communities of the right to protect themselves through zoning, but those efforts failed.

We see no harm to making the constitution a bit clearer, and we like the idea of removing unnecessary provisions from our state constitution. Moreover, if voters approve this amendment, it will be more difficult for those who want to make zoning impossible to mislead people into thinking the issues are related. For these reasons, we recommend a “yes” on Amendment 5.