They can’t take your house and give it to the mayor’s mistress, even if they pay you for it. But they can, apparently, take your house and tear it down to make room for a development of trendy shops and restaurants, a hotel and so on. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
The logic is often far-fetched – how does medical marijuana affect interstate commerce? – and some conservatives would like judges to start throwing out federal laws wholesale on commerce clause grounds. The court once again said no thanks. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
The case decided on Thursday, though, seemed promising to takings fans because it wasn’t about compensation. It was about the requirement that any government taking must have a ‘public purpose.’ Michael Kinsley Read Quote
The ‘takings’ clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
In those days, the late 1970s, one of the leading politicians was a soon-to-be uncle by marriage of Arnold Schwarzenegger, named Ted Kennedy. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
In recurring episodes over the next couple of decades, the minority view gradually won. A profusion of factors differentiates each case from the others, including naked partisanship on both sides, but the trend has been clear. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
Conservatives and liberals alike have been waiting for this moment for a third of a century. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
If sexual intercourse, as the poets tell us, began in 1963, it was another decade and a half before the American political system began to take notice. Michael Kinsley Read Quote
