Kinda-Left and Way-Right are coming together to fight for property rights in the coming Session. Well-established and mildly progressive South Dakota Farmers Union and Dakota Rural Action are coalescing with the relatively new and keenly Birchy Landowners for Eminent Domain Reform to form South Dakotans First, a lobbying group committed to making it harder for out-of-state (and, one would hope, in-state) corporations to steal our land via eminent domain:
Farmers Union President Doug Sombke told South Dakota Searchlight the coalition will advocate for property rights generally. But its creation is a response to Summit Carbon Solutions’ filing of eminent domain proceedings against more than 150 landowners for a proposed multi-state carbon dioxide pipeline. Summit has said the eminent domain actions have since been withdrawn.
…Summit plans to reapply after identifying a new route that complies with the county ordinances. That’s why South Dakotans First sees the upcoming legislative session in Pierre, which begins in January, as a vital time to pass reform laws.
“Just because you put a permit application in, that doesn’t mean you get to trespass on peoples’ land,” Sombke said.
Sombke said the definition of “public use” will be stretched beyond its original intent if it allows companies like Summit to use eminent domain without delivering a commodity the general public uses – like water, gas or electricity.
…Rep. Karla Lems, R-Canton – who owns land the pipeline would cross – was in attendance at Thursday’s press conference. She sponsored a failed bill last winter that would have barred eminent domain for carbon pipelines. This winter, she plans to support a bill that would ban pipelines from using eminent domain until they have a permit from the Public Utilities Commission. Lems and Sombke said a number of other bills are in the works but are not ready to be shared [Joshua Haiar, “New Property Rights Coalition Plans to Lobby for Eminent Domain Restrictions,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2023.10.12].
We can only hope that South Dakotans First will spend less time promoting the right-wing insurrectionist agenda that pops up on the Landowners for Eminent Domain Reform’s Facebook page—like LEDR’s latest promotion of an Aberdeen event with former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack peddling his notion that sheriffs ought to lead rebellion against the government:
Sombke shared the results of an online survey the coalition funded – conducted by Embold Research. It surveyed 1,037 likely general election voters in the state from Sept. 5 to 10 and found that 85% of people familiar with eminent domain oppose its use for “private purposes.” Additionally, nearly 90% of voters surveyed don’t think Summit should be allowed to use eminent domain to complete the project [Haiar, 2023.10.12].
Embold Research makes that electoral point explicit in its research memo:
Accordingly, two thirds of South Dakotans, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, say they would be more likely to support their state legislators if they voted to clarify South Dakota law to limit the use of eminent domain by private entities [Trenton Marlar and Ben Greenfield, Memo: “Widespread Opposition to Summit Carbon Solutions’ Pipeline Among SD Voters,” Embold Research, 2023.09.20.].
The cross-partisan South Dakotan First should work to capitalize on that cross-partisan voter sentiment. South Dakotans First should send this simple message to legislators during the 2024 Session: Your constituents don’t want corporations using eminent domain for private projects. Support the reforms we propose, and you’ll be doing the people’s will. Throw in with the corporations, and your voters may seek new representation.
AI Prompt: Is sequestration and burial of methane from corn production within the definition of public use that allows eminent domain over private land for a pipeline?
Happy 50th Birthday 🎂 Mike Zitterich ~ Welcome to the Club
Remove sequestered carbon from the commodities list. The legislature had their chance last session and intentionally voted to consider it a commodity, which allows eminent domain. It makes more sense to incentivize decreasing the production of greenhouse gases altogether… not manufacturing the problem substance just to sequester it in the ground.. after causing an unnecessary hazard by liquifying it and shooting it across states in a flimsy pipeline
Perhaps Congressman Johnson could push a bill that closes the loophole that incentivizes the creation of climate-unfriendly products in order to get rich off the taxpayer-funded government payouts.
Great. We did so much work in the 1980s and 1990s working across ideological and party lines. United Family Farmers pioneered this way of operating in the 1970s. These folks were heros of mine and many others, and we learned the lessons they taught us about organizing on issues that would unite people. You didn’t need to agree on every issue to ally on the issues you agreed on. UFF was an East River group, but there were other efforts in West River, too, that followed that approach.
Majority of iowans want curb to eminent domain, but magats in the senate refused to bring up bill this session. House of magats decided no eminent domain to non-common carrier magat pipelines.
It is fascinating that so many likely conservatives oppose eminent domain for a private development yet are okay with eminent domain by the government. The theory behind the latter seems an example of classic socialism – government appropriation of private property for the direct purpose of benefiting the public, without any profit motive, while the former would seem to go hand in hand with capitalism – private exploitation of resources for purely for profit while incidently serving a public purpose.
It would seem to me that the distinction between private business and public entities when allowing eminent domain is a rather oversimplistic silly way to judge the wisdom of taking land. Rather, the more important question strikes me as what in fact is the effect of allowing such a taking – will it actually provide a meaningful benefit to the public, or will it simplt line someone’s pockets, whether that someone (or group) is made up of private businesses or public officials that grift (like Trump, Mendez and way too many others). A knee jerk opposition to private taking without consideration of the actual public benefit seems to miss the point.
What bat said.
Hey, whatever it takes to destroy the Republican Party works for me.
It is fascinating to grudznick that so many strong and intelligent liberals, like Ms. Mammal, don’t like the carbon sequestration because of the “pipeline” aspect, even though it’s all about enabling a greenie mission and not transporting coal tar. This is like the conundrum of those wingnut types that team up with sheer libbies on these eminent domain issues. It seems to this Conservative with Common Sense that there are just always people who want to be angry (not Ms. Mammal who is sensible) about whatever they can find to be angry about.
Generally, grudznick is for digging, boreholing, mining and burying things all over, but I’m still unclear on this issue. Perhaps overhead pipelines, like the way some towns run telephone wires and extension cords.
These seriously unserious Birchophiles believe John Wilkes Booth was a patriot who took out a US President who started the Civil War directed by a Marxist Illuminati and call President Eisenhower a Communist spy because he spoke out against McCarthyism. These are Sibby and Zittiot level phantasms.
The nutbaggerists want to stop anything that advances the greening of the planet because Agenda 21 is a global socialist takeover driven by George Soros.
I miss Mr. Sibby.
Mr. G- I am not against pipelines. The point I was trying to make is how the whole thing is unnecessary. The ‘commodity’ wouldn’t be produced if the monetary incentive wasn’t there. It reminds me of an arts and crafts lady who buys reams of new paper just to rip it up, turn it into pulp, and press it in order to have ‘homemade’ paper. It is wasteful and ultimately does more harm than good. And we’re paying out the wazoo to cook ourselves. Don’t make the stuff so we don’t have to pay to get rid of the stuff.
Liquifying it under high pressure in folks’ backyards is just adding insult to injury. Furthermore, it seems lousy to me to expect to get rich off the government (taxpayers) just for doing the right thing. If you can’t help producing an undesirable byproduct, sequester it yourself.
Thank you for the clarification, Ms. Mammal. You are wiser than most.
Sibby doesn’t like Jews, grud.
Grudznutz is uselesser than most.
I would like to second the happy birthday wish to Mike!
All my life, in South Dakota, I have experienced a hard core, anti-Jewish prejudice scapegoating Jews and spreading outrageous propaganda against Jews in South Dakota. Where did this come from?? Are there 3 Jewish places of worship in South Dakota?? Are there a 1,000 practicing Jews?? As a young man, the late night radio waves were saturated with extreme right wing propaganda sponsored by the Texas multimillionaire, H.L. Hunt, the Oklahoma preacher Billy James Hargis, and the Arkansas, proto Nazi Gerald L. Smith, founder of the Christian Nationalist Movement and the America First Party of the 30’s and 40’s. The John Birch Society sponsored radio shows featuring a fellow named Welch in the 50’s which claimed, among other things, that Eisenhower was a “pawn of the Jews” and a Communist fellow traveler. I asked my father, “Who would believe this obvious propaganda?” He said, “Ignorant people. There are a lot of them.”
Mr. Blundt, do not cast the wide net over grudznick’s good friend Lar and close personal friend Bob because of their apparent scapegoating. They really don’t mean what they type, and I have deep manly affection for both. You should see it when they hug.
Karla Lems is way out there; so is Kevin Jensen.
Ms. Lems is very pretty, if slightly on the insaner side.
BCB, the potential questions never end. How is public taking v. private taking differentiated?
Who is the public, local folks who live in the area of the taking, or people far away who have no stake
in the private property taken? How is the public benefit measured?
We already have a system in place, what system would you rather suggest?
I miss Mr. Sibby. Next time aim better.
What happened to Sibby?
Sibby is in an asylum on one the moons of Uranus.
Edwin, I don’t know if I can answer your questions accurately, but I am un aware of any meaningful difference between public and private taking after Kelo ruled that a city could take private property to sell to a private business so long as the City decided that the transfer business would advance a public purpose.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/04-108
Perhaps the distinction is that a private business must enlist the help of a public entity like a city to do the taking and then transfer the properrty to the business. As for proximity of the taker, I am unaware of any limitations. Deciding whether there is an actual public benefit seems ambiguous, but Kelo implies a court should give deference to the decision of the public entity that makes that determination and is involved in the taking. I can’t really offer a meaningful suggestion for a different system because I lack sufficient knowledge and undertstanding of the intricacies of the current system..