Little Pink House - YouTube

Is your property

yours?

Not if government takes it.

And it can for

what it calls public use.

Eminent domain law has long allowed

politicians to grab your property to

build roads,

railroad tracks,

border walls.

Which helps explain why

President Trump told Bret Baier,

"I think eminent domain is wonderful."

I get it that a highway

or a border wall

is public use,

but 13 years ago the Supreme Court ruled

that New London, Connecticut

could bulldoze this little pink house

to make room

for a new business development.

Eminent domain.

They can take your home,

they can take your land.

In this soon-to-be released movie,

Catherine Keener plays Susetto Kelo,

the owner of that little pink house,

here learning that she has no right

to her own property.

How could somebody break into my house

and take everything I have and go to jail?

Oh you could shoot him.

I could shoot him!

I could kill them.

But if they want the whole thing it's perfectly legal.

The law does require the government

to give you fair value for your property.

But the bureaucrats decide

what fair value is.

Mrs. Kelo! I have great news.

They've agreed to increase their offer by $10,000.

Susette Kelo didn't want the money.

She wanted to keep her home,

but the government said no.

So the bulldozers came.

90 families left.

Susette and six others refused to leave.

While this was going on,

I interviewed the real-life Kelo.

We were backed into corners,

like animals in a corner.

I gave the city's lawyer a hard time about that.

Any group of politicians can kick you out of your home.

Well, that's true,

but that's true if you want to put up a road

for example,

the question is,

is this serving an important

public purpose

and we say it is.

It's giving them a lot of power.

Yes, that's true.

A libertarian law firm,

The Institute for Justice took Susette's case

all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court,

where Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

pushed back against the taking.

Say you had a Motel 6

and the city says,

well if we had a Ritz-Carlton

we would have higher taxes.

Now is that okay?

Yes, Your Honor that would be okay.

So you can take from A to give to B

if B pays more taxes?

If it is a significant amount,

yes.

Susette's lawyer responded this way:

The one thing that all poor neighborhoods share

is that they don't produce much tax revenue.

If the court affirms the lower court's decision,

then you would put poor neighborhoods

and working-class neighborhoods like Fort Trumbull

in jeopardy.

He was right.

But the Supreme Court ruled

5-4 against Susette.

U.S. Supreme Court today affirmed the power

of local governments to seize private property.

The decision alarmed people

across America.

Some states passed laws

limiting their politicians right to grab your property.

In New London,

people rallied around Susette.

Hands off her home! Hands off her home!

Thank you all for fighting so hard.

But that fight was over.

They'd lost.

Years later,

I went with Susette Kelo to

look at the place

New London said was going to be a

"booming development".

This was my stairs

and I had a long porch,

and this is where the house was.

The city said they had to tear the houses down

because development would happen,

tax revenues

all kinds of cool new things

and yet,

this is what they got.

No hotel or upscale housing,

no conference center,

no nothing.

Kelo's house has been torn down

and the lot where it once stood is vacant.

It's still empty.

Even today

13 years later, there's no development.

It's just unused land.

The politicians were wrong.

This new movie is a good reminder

of just how powerful

and wrong

politicians often are.