Go Team, Go.

November 14, 2006 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

by Steven Geoffrey Gieseler

Here's an update on one example of eminent domain being used to build sports stadiums and arenas, a topic of particular interest to me. 

I am as rabid a sports fan as it is healthy to be–and maybe on the wrong side of that line, to be truthful.  Even so, I see no justification for condemning private property so that owners can build complexes for themselves. 

Requiring the public to finance these endeavors through tax increases, as is the norm, is bad enough.  Taking homes or threatening to do so simply to avoid paying market price is something else, and worse, altogether.  It puts affected property owners in the awful position of choosing between relinquishing their constitutional rights and being branded in public as pariahs out to harm the teams they, and their communities, are so passionate about.  Either way, that's not a fair fight.