Worth reading: Government’s Promise: Taking Away Property?, commentary from U. Chicago lawprof Randy Picker on a NY Times editorial which argues “[t]he first step toward providing the [economic] relief is to include in the packagea measure to allow hard-pressed homeowners to have the terms of themortgages modified under bankruptcy court protection, an avenuecurrently denied them by an outdated and anti-consumer bent to the law.” Professor Picker suggests “the central question is whether the rights of themortgage holder are sufficiently property like that they are entitled toconstitutional protection from after-the-fact taking…”
In other words, can government simply rewrite long-established rules to wipe out an interest without being liable for a taking? More here.