Tag: private property

Judges Rule Against Property Owners Seeking Compensation for SWAT Team Damage

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Nov. 3 that the Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team is not liable for damage done to a business while chasing a criminal in 2022.

NoHo Printing & Graphics Owner Carlos Pena will ask the full court to rehear the case, his attorneys from the Institute for Justice said in a statement posted to the Institute’s webpage.

A majority ruled that arresting a criminal is an exception to the takings clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. That clause requires the government to compensate the owners of property taken by government action.

In August 2022, a criminal barricaded himself inside the business Pena had owned for 30 years. Police actions resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in damage and lost profits. Pena’s insurance and the city refused to pay, so in July 2023, he sued.

In March 2024, the court ruled against Pena, and he appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Pena vowed to keep up the fight. In an email to The Epoch Times, Pena wrote that the battle is larger than just his business.

“What happened to me isn’t right and sometimes it feels like the deck is stacked against good citizens. I just don’t want anyone else to lose everything they worked for, like I did,” Pena wrote.

Pena and McKinney, Texas, homeowner Vicki Baker both filed claims against their respective cities after police damaged their property.

In Baker’s case, a fugitive high on methamphetamine barricaded himself in her house with a teenage hostage. He eventually released the teen girl, who told police that her kidnapper told her he would not be taken alive.

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Consumer Protection Laws: Unconstitutional Controls That Hurt the Very People They Claim to Help

From rent caps to “price-gouging” laws, a new wave of so-called consumer-protection laws is sweeping state capitols. These measures are marketed as compassion in a crisis — or “fairness” in housing — but their substance is the same: command-and-control price fixing that violates the Constitution, tramples private-property rights, and sabotages the free market’s ability to allocate goods and services when people need them most.

Three recent bills illustrate the trend. Alabama’s House Bill 528 (HB528) and Virginia’s House Bill 1301 (HB1301) expand anti-gouging controls to more transactions and longer periods after emergencies. New Jersey’s Assembly Bill 3361 (A3361) imposes rent control on manufactured-home sites. Nebraska’s Legislative Bill 266 (LB266), however, is a rare bright spot, preempting local rent control and affirming property rights. Together, these bills spotlight the central question: Will states defend a constitutional, republican system rooted in liberty and voluntary exchange, or drift toward administrative despotism under the banner of “consumer protection”?

Protecting Property and Contract Rights

America’s Founders understood what modern lawmakers too often forget: Price controls are a form of compelled exchange that violates liberty. The U.S. Constitution safeguards that liberty in multiple places:

  • Fifth Amendment: “Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Price ceilings that force owners to sell below market value are regulatory takings in substance, if not in name.
  • Article I, Section 10: “No State shall … pass any … Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” When a legislature dictates the permissible price, term, or escalation of a private lease or service, it impairs the parties’ agreed-upon obligations.
  • Ninth and 10th Amendments: The people retain unenumerated rights, and powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people. These clauses limit government; they do not license it to control every transaction.
  • 14th Amendment (due process and equal protection): Arbitrary economic edicts that single out owners for special burdens invite due-process and equal-protection concerns.

Consumer-protection statutes also collide with first principles. The Declaration of Independence identifies unalienable rights — life, liberty, and property — and charges government to secure them. Free exchange is a peaceful exercise of those rights, and upholds one’s pursuit of happiness. Substituting bureaucratic fiat for voluntary exchange undermines the moral basis of self-government.

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Henry Family Saves 175-Year-Old New Jersey Farm From Government Seizure

For nearly two centuries, the Henry family has worked the same soil in Bedminster, New Jersey — a 175-year-old farm passed from one generation to the next. But earlier this year, their heritage came under attack. Local officials, invoking the state’s “affordable housing” laws, sought to seize part of the Henrys’ land through legal maneuvering that would have handed it to developers.

The battle lasted months. It was draining, personal, and emblematic of a deeper national struggle between individual liberty and government overreach. At its heart was a simple question: do Americans still have the right to protect their property from the encroaching power of the state?

The Henrys said yes — and refused to back down.

Bedminster Township officials claimed the family’s land was needed to satisfy New Jersey’s affordable housing requirements, part of the state’s “Mount Laurel doctrine,” which forces municipalities to set aside areas for low- and moderate-income housing. In practice, that mandate often translates to deals between town governments and private developers — deals that profit politically connected insiders while displacing long-time property owners.

For the Henrys, compliance wasn’t an option. The farm had been in the family since before the Civil War, and to lose it to bureaucratic manipulation would have been a betrayal of everything their ancestors built. “This isn’t just land,” patriarch John Henry said. “It’s our home, our history, and our future. We weren’t going to let the government take that away.”

The family took their fight to court, arguing that the township’s actions amounted to an unconstitutional land grab disguised as “public good.” Their legal team showed that the town’s plan violated both the spirit and the letter of eminent domain law — which allows government to take private property only for legitimate public use, not for private development masked as social policy.

After months of hearings, the judge ruled in favor of the Henry family, halting the township’s attempt to rezone and seize the property. It was a rare victory for ordinary citizens in an era when small landowners are routinely bulldozed by regulation and corporate collusion.

The case may have unfolded in a quiet corner of New Jersey, but its implications stretch nationwide. Across the country, similar battles are erupting as state and local governments exploit “housing equity,” “green energy,” and “climate resilience” initiatives to justify taking or restricting private land. What happened in Bedminster is a warning: government power, once expanded, rarely retreats — unless citizens are willing to fight back.

The Henrys did just that. Their courage reaffirms a truth that runs deeper than politics — that freedom is inseparable from property. The ability to own, cultivate, and preserve what one’s family has built is not a mere privilege; it is a cornerstone of self-government and human dignity.

Their victory isn’t only about acres of farmland. It’s about preserving a way of life rooted in responsibility, faith, and independence — values that have long defined America’s heartland and are increasingly under assault by bureaucrats who see people as obstacles to policy.

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How the Federal Government Created the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

If anything symbolizes the American dream, it is homeownership—an asset that is viewed as part of a route from poverty and exclusion to independence and responsibility. However, as detailed in Part I, for over a century, state and federal governments worked to racially segregate American neighborhoods, promoting homeownership for whites while denying it for African-Americans. The result is that decades after discriminatory treatment in housing was outlawed, the homeownership gap between minorities and whites remains large.

Such a shameful condition motivated many well-meaning activists to pressure government housing authorities to expand homeownership opportunities to minority and low-income residents. The left saw this as a way to reduce discrimination and marginalization, solving the problems of past racism. The right saw it as a way to build an “ownership society” and give low-income earners a stake in the American dream, an anti-communist tactic first envisioned by Woodrow Wilson.

From the 1990s to the 2000s, both political parties bent the federal mortgage agencies to their will, continually relaxing underwriting standards to promote homeownership. Along with historically low interest rates, this led to an explosion in subprime lending, which fueled the housing bubble and spread toxic mortgages throughout the financial system. Rather than a failure of the free market, the federal government was directly complicit in the mortgage market’s spectacular ramp-up and eventual collapse.

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The Left’s ‘stolen-land’ rhetoric threatens private property

Left-wing “land acknowlegements” could be having real-world consequences for property owners in Canada. And the United States may be next.

It began as a polite ritual. Before meetings or ceremonies, institutions began acknowledging that their buildings sit on land once inhabited by Indigenous peoples: “We recognize this is the unceded territory of the [tribe name].” The practice, with roots in Australia as far back as the 1970s, was picked up in Canada following the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and moved quickly from Canada to left-leaning universities, city councils and churches in the 2020s. Many saw it as a mere courtesy. But beneath the symbolism lies deeper political movement that could erode the very foundation of private property.

In Canada, that shift is already underway. A British Columbia Supreme Court ruling this year suggested that even privately owned, fee-simple land might rest on “defective and invalid” title if an Aboriginal title still exists. For a nation built on English common-law property rights, that’s quite a statement. As columnist Kevin Klein warns in the Winnipeg Sun, Ottawa’s silence on the issue is turning Crown land — once considered secure — into “conditional land.” If the Crown’s title is conditional, how long before yours is?

Land acknowledgements may sound harmless, but they prepare the rhetorical ground for these legal arguments. Once governments, universities, and corporations declare publicly that their property sits on “stolen land,” they’ve already accepted the premise that they don’t actually own it. Activists then insist that recognition demands restitution — and suddenly the issue moves from ceremony to court.

That’s what’s happening in Canada, where some judges now treat Indigenous land claims as concurrent with existing titles. For investors, homeowners, and farmers alike, that’s a recipe for uncertainty — and eventually, seizure of land.

The Left insists this is “reconciliation,” not revolution. But the outcome is the same. Private property rights are fundamental to Western liberty. If property is always subject to retroactive moral judgments or undefined shared stewardship, ownership loses to temporary permission.

In the United States, land acknowledgements have also run rapid, typically in the same academic and bureaucratic circles that look askance at capitalism and private property.

None of this means ignoring history or dismissing past injustices, just refusing to let symbolic guilt erode the legal system. Reconciliation should not come at the cost of the rule of law. Governments must make clear that while we honor history, property rights remain absolute under modern law.

The growing unease north of the border is a warning to America: beware the moral language that undermines legal foundations. Today’s “land acknowledgement” may be tomorrow’s title challenge. And once you concede the premise that your land isn’t really yours, it may not be for long.

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Democrats’ Bill Would Let Federal Workers Skip Paying Rent During Government Shutdowns

Since the federal government isn’t currently paying its bills during the shutdown, Senate Democrats think federal workers shouldn’t have to either.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D–Hawaii) and 17 of his Democratic Senate colleagues have introduced a bill that would relieve federal workers and contractors from their obligations to pay rent, mortgages, insurance premiums, and student loan payments during shutdowns.

The bill would also stay eviction and foreclosure proceedings for 30 days after a shutdown ends. Anyone who tries to carry out an eviction or foreclosure of a federal worker or contractor during that time would be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to fines or even jail time.

“Right now, hundreds of thousands of federal workers, federal contractor employees, and their families don’t know whether they’ll be able to pay rent and make ends meet. Our bill will protect these workers and make sure they aren’t harmed during this shutdown,” said Schatz.

To be sure, this bill is mostly signaling.

Politically, Republicans are not going to advance legislation that would reduce pressure on Democrats to vote to reopen the government.

Practically, the protections it would offer federal workers are unnecessary, at least in the housing context.

It would be odd, and indeed irrational, for a landlord to evict an otherwise good tenant if they miss a full rent payment during a government shutdown that will, in all likelihood, end in a few weeks. That’s particularly true given that government workers are guaranteed back pay once a shutdown ends.

Pursuing an eviction in that context would require a landlord to kick out a tenant who’s going to start paying their bills again soon, and instead incur the costs of the eviction itself, turning over the unit, and finding a new tenant.

Clearly, the reasonable thing to do would be for landlords and their current tenants to work out a deal in such circumstances. We have plenty of evidence that that’s what happens even during even more severe economic shocks.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns put a lot of people out of work. Contrary to the predictions of activists, this did not produce a mass wave of evictions—either before or after eviction moratoriums were put in place, and even when promised federal rental assistance was hard to access.

By and large, tenants paid their bills with what funds they had, and landlords worked out deals about how to cover any shortfall.

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New Carbon Capture Legislation, Same Old Grift

A bi-partisan Congressional duo is pushing for a massive federal land grab through new carbon capture and storage (CCS) legislation in the U.S. House.

Utah Republican Blake Moore joins forces with California Democrat Jim Costa to sell out private property owners nationwide with the BECCS Advancement Commission Act of 2025.

BECCS stands for “Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage,” and the legislation builds on Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act, adding additional funding for CCS to the billions included in that massive financial debacle.

H.R. 5597 also proposes adding another layer of bureaucracy to our already bloated federal government. If passed, it will establish a BECCS Advancement Commission in the Department of Agriculture, a nine- or 10-member board comprised of career politicians, lobbyists, and subsidy recipients. (So much for DOGE.)

Assorted Accolades

To date, no other Congressmen have added their names as cosponsors. But the bill has earned plenty of accolades from those who stand to reap billions in federal largess. Some of them include:

  1. Arbor Energy, a carbon capture tech company founded in 2022, cozy with Microsoft, and which has already received $7 million in federal funding.
  2. Elimini, an even more recent startup launched in late 2024 and specializing in BECCS technology, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Kingdom’s renewable energy giant Drax Group. In other words, it’s a conduit for American tax dollars to a foreign-owned company.
  3. The Carbon Business Council (CBC) is a non-profit association whose members hail from CCS circles. It is involved in Elon Musk’s XPRIZE which, at $100 million, is touted as the “largest incentive prize in history,” and aims to fund development of carbon dioxide removal technology. CBC’s executive director, Ben Rubin, is a frequent speaker at United Nations climate conferences and at the World Economic Forum.

“BECCS is a novel technology uniquely positioned to promote wildfire mitigation, bolster economic development in rural America, and deliver much-needed baseload power as energy demand for data centers and artificial intelligence continues to grow,” stumped Moore as he introduced the bill. “This legislation will help us harness new technology to reduce wildfire risks, create good-paying jobs and keep rural economies like ours growing,” Costa predictably parroted.

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You’re On Your Own: Raleigh Police Chief Says She Will Not Put Officers in Harm’s Way to Protect Property

Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown held a press conference on Sunday morning after the mass violence and looting by leftist protesters overnight. Deck-Brown called the mass destruction “disgusting and unacceptable.”

Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown then lectured on white supremacy in front of the looting buildings and said she would not put officers in harms way to protect property.

You’re on your own, suckers!

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Greens vote to ABOLISH landlords in bizarre assault on millions of Brits at party’s conference… even though one of their own MPs rents out a home

Green Party members have voted to ‘abolish’ landlords at their autumn conference as they took aim at the nearly three million people in Britain who rent out a home.

A motion passed at the Greens’ gathering in Bournemouth on Sunday committed the left-wing party to ‘seek the effective abolition of private landlordism’.

This would be achieved through punitive regulation and taxes on landlords, including the introduction of rent controls and scrapping of Right to Buy.

Those who let out Airbnbs would have to pay business rates under the Greens’ plans, while there would be double taxation for empty properties.

Party members also backed proposals for a ‘land value tax’ levied on owners not tenants, as well as the imposition of National Insurance on private rents.

In addition, the motion demanded the ending of buy to let mortgages as a means of removing finance for landlords.

It comes as the Greens look to build on their growing strength in major cities, with new leader Zack Polanski claiming they are ‘on track’ to supplant Labour in London.

But the motion could prove awkward for Adrian Ramsay, one of the Greens’ four MPs, who is landlord of a property on Norfolk.

According to his parliamentary register of interests, Mr Ramsay rents out a home he co-owns, which provides rental income of more than £10,000 a year.

The MP for Waveney Valley has previously defended being a landlord, posting on social media in August: ‘I co-own a property with my ex-wife, which we used to live in. 

‘I don’t make a profit from it as I have kept the rent below market rate. I don’t intend to be a landlord long-term.’

The motion passed by Green members on Sunday stated: ‘The private rental sector has failed, it is a vehicle for wealth extraction, funnelling money from renters to the landlord class.

‘This motion makes it clear Green Party policy is to seek the effective abolition of private landlordism and our support for building council housing.’

It added: ‘The Green Party believes the existence of private landlords adds no positive value to the economy or society, that the relationship between landlord and tenant is inherently and intrinsically extractive and exploitative.’

Carla Denyer, Green MP for Bristol Central, said: ‘While the motion to confidence had an eye-catching name, it does not actually ‘abolish’ landlords.

‘It does however address the housing crisis, empowers tenants and improves their wellbeing.

‘It contains a range of policies which, over time, would reduce the proportion of the housing market that is privately rented, and increase the proportion of socially rented homes.’

Mr Polanski, who was elected Green leader last month, has been dubbed an ‘eco-populist’ and is aiming to replace Labour on the Left of British politics.

He told The Guardian this weekend:  ‘I think it’s already happening. It’s happening at defection level.

‘Just last month in Barking and Dagenham, we welcome three new councillors to the party. It’s also happening right across England and Wales.

‘At local council elections, there was a stunning victory recently in Brighton, where the Labour vote completely collapsed and the Green vote rocketed.

‘Reform are still a worry, yes, and the fact that they’re polling even reasonably in London is a real threat, I think, to anyone who’s a progressive voice.

‘But absolutely, the plan has always been to replace Labour at the electoral level, starting at the local level, and I think we’re on track to do that.’

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Local Tyrants: How Property Rights of Farmers in Battleground States are Victimized by Zoning Boards

A new report spearheaded by the Private Property Rights Institute (PPRI) has profiled different farmers in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, highlighting the stories of how zoning boards have prevented them from properly utilizing their land to stay afloat.

In an age of Biden-driven inflation, domination of the farming industry by ruthless Big Ag and a myriad of other economic challenges, these farmers have also had to deal with the mandates of zoning boards restricting their ability to develop their land as they see fit.

Bob Wackernagel, a third-generation farmer in Michigan, has watched community-based farming slowly die off in Michigan. At the age of 60, he reports being the youngest farmer in his area. To make ends meet and preserve his family’s way of life, Wackernagel leased approximately 100 acres for solar development upon the most arid portion of his farmland. As a result, he has received attacks from township officials.

“I use the ground that returns me the least investment back on my crops … I’ve replanted two or three times a season on that land, because of poor soil quality… They act like it’s their land … They don’t have to pay the property taxes; they don’t have to farm it,” Wackernagel said.

Dwight Ely, a seventh-generation farmer from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, can trace his roots on his family’s land back to the 1800s. He raises livestock and operates a meat-processing business with massive and growing energy costs. Ely invested in solar panels years ago to help bring down his energy bill to manageable levels.

“Sure, it helped this generation for sure … big savings… absolutely, it helped to continue the generational thing for sure,” he said. “We pay that thing off, and it’s been nothing but awesome … It’s just been a gift that keeps giving,” Ely said.

Ely worked with neighbors to add fencing, plant trees and make sure his solar panels did not cause blight within his rural area. However, his hopes to expand his solar fleet as part of a business expansion plan that would have provided value to the community were stymied by the local zoning board.

“Some little guy sitting up at a little office at the township building says… he wants to make it hard. That’s the ridiculous part,” he said.

Two local officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan – Leoni Township Supervisor Howard Linnabary and Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko – believe that misinformation and a poor understanding of property rights are causing barriers that result in bureaucratic pushback against solar panels.

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