Kansas colleague Chris Burger has published an article in the Kansas Bar Journal with the intriguing title, “Sanguine Doves in the Hands of the State or How the Power of Eminent Domain has Few Practical Restraints.” We dare you to resist downloading it and reading.
Thanks to Chris for allowing us to repost it (since most of us are not members of the Kansas Bar). It’s a short article and won’t take too much of your time, but there’s some valuable information there, even if you are not barred in Kansas. We especially appreciated the section on “drafting gamesmanship” and the quotes from the Kansas Supreme Court Justices on pages 31-32, this one in particular:
Left unchecked by flood walls erected either by the people’s representatives or by the people’s constitution, the power of the state will flow like an encroaching ocean into and through every available chink and crevice. The statutory requirement of prior notice is one such flood wall against the “abuse of the private citizen” in eminent domain proceedings. But in its absence, as today’s case aptly demonstrates, condemning authorities are more likely to take advantage of this crack in the law — the better to effect expansive exercise of power — than they are to be “scrupulously fair” and “cognizant of the responsibility that comes with a power so great.”
Strong letter to follow!
Check it out.