today, at long last, is the day i talk about my thesis.
just under a year after i decided to undertake my final project,
it's completed, graded, and i've graduated.
and i've decided to give you lot the chance to hear about it one last time.
let me say this at the outset:
i'm putting my thesis on this blog post by including it as a downloadable link.
there would be no point in talking about it if i didn't let you read it for yourself.
even though i've included a copyright on every page to avoid it being stolen/plagiarized,
i'm placing no restrictions on who can link to it, distribute it, or post it elsewhere,
so long as i am properly credited, and this post is directly linked to [if applicable].
i do this not to be egotistical and demand credit at every turn,
but so comments, criticism, feedback, &c can go directly to me,
as well as providing proof that i gave permission to freely distribute it.
i have no problem with my thesis finding its way through the vast and magical interwubs,
i just want to make sure everyone knows who and where it came from.
as such,
i hereby grant written permission for my thesis,
"
chicken littleisms: kelo v. city new london and the meaning of 'public use',
to be freely distributed on the internet, provided proper credit and links are given.
with that out of the way, let's get to it.
buckle up, it's gonna be a long post.
i suppose i owe you more than a few words on my thesis,
but, in the interest of both space and getting you to read it,
i'll give you the basic rundown of it.
in 1997, new london, ct, which had been suffering an economic downturn,
was informed of pfizer pharmaceutical's interest in building a new research hq.
they lobbied hard and got pfizer to announce plans to build it in fort trumbull,
one of new london's small waterfront neighborhoods.
trouble was, the area around the pfizer site was rather destitute.
in addition to pfizer remediating the site they'd ultimately use,
they asked the city to rejuvenate some of the surrounding land.
since said land contained rundown buildings, business, and a residential neighborhood,
the city needed a plan for how it would go about fixing up the neighborhood,
and it turned to its newly–restarted development corporation to create one.
the nldc drafted a thorough plan to rejuvenate the neighborhood
[the municipal development plan, or mdp],
and it was approved by the city council in february 2000.
the plan revolved around the use of eminent domain:
by using eminent domain to acquire all the land in the fort trumbull neighborhood,
they could then demolish all the businesses and residences.
this would allow them to build businesses and accommodations near the fort instead,
complementing pfizer and creating a smaller business district south of downtown.
the way new london was able to use eminent domain came down to interpretation.
eminent domain's power comes from the 5th amendment's takings clause
['...nor shall private propery be taken for public use, without just compensation],
and in connecticut, 'public use' has been consistently been interpreted broadly,
incorporating many different definitions of 'use' by the public.
thus, in ct, it is legal to use eminent domain for economic redevelopment,
since the economic benefits of doing so have been deemed of public use.
so, new london used eminent domain in that way to reinvigorate its economy,
and provide public use by way of jobs, increased tax revenue, and strengthened economy.
understandably, that mindset didn't sit well with the fort trumbull residents,
and they began protesting the mdp and the nldc's use of eminent domain.
their protests grew in scope and publicity,
and they eventually partnered with the institute for justice,
a washington d.c. law firm specializing in libertarian issues.
the fight revolved around whether nldc's use of eminent domain was valid,
and ij ultimately filed suit against the city on behalf of eleven residents.
the case [
kelo v. city of new london] started in the ct superior court,
where the judge decided that eminent domain for economic redevelopment was valid,
but only in some parts of nldc's plan, and not others.
both sides appealed to the ct supreme court,
which ruled that the city's use of eminent domain was valid across the board.
ij again appealed the csc ruling to the us supreme court,
where the csc ruling was upheld, to much publicity and press coverage.
that ruling sparked a spree of litigation across the country to address eminent domain,
which has continued to this day.
what i argue is that much of the reaction to
kelo is misguided and misinformed.
while i respect and acknowledge various interpretations of the takings clause,
many who protest
kelo do not.
critics, pundits, and lawyers have skewed and misrepresented
kelo consistently
and have allowed it to become a big–government bogeyman,
convincing people that the government can wantonly take your home for any reason,
or, scarier yet, for no reason at all.
i believe that there are far too many uninformed voices screeching about
kelo,
and i wanted to provide a thoughtful, measured, factual account of the case and its origin.
the only way to understand the case is by understanding the city and the people,
the circumstances surrounding the mdp, the lawsuit,
and most importantly, the 5th amendment and the meaning of 'public use'.
not only did i want people to know how
kelo came about and why,
i also wanted them to know what the
kelo ruling does and doesn't mean.
hyperbole and parroted information can only get us so far.
at some point someone has to tell the truth in an honest and concise way,
and that's what i set out to do.
i know this case seems like an obscure topic to write about,
but it's come to mean a lot to me,
and hopefully will mean something to you to once you've finished reading it.
i'm sure there are at least some who are wondering how i chose this in the first place,
so, as follow up, the story of how i came to write this.
a little over a year ago,
the time had arrived for me to pick a topic for my senior honors thesis.
my thesis would be required to graduate from the honors college,
and i needed to pick a topic i could write at least 50 pages on.
considering that my longest paper to that point had been only 20 pages
[my
interesting–yet–maddening paper on norway and denmark during wwII],
i needed something i knew i would like, be passionate about, and stick with.
i'd had a number of ideas float through my head,
from something russian history related, to something about the progressive era,
to something regarding the state of the labor movement
[i was fresh off my labor studies internship in new york at the time].
after meeting with my honors advisor and talking to her about it,
she recommended i meet with dr fine, a professor i'd never met.
dr fine was an american/labor/women's history prof,
and we briefly fleshed out possible topics i could write about.
i kept having nagging doubts about the themes we were hitting on,
and knew that if i wasn't vested in what i was writing about,
it would be half–assed and boring.
after a few meeting with her and dr moch,
a recurring topic kept popping into my head: my hometown.
i could write something about the history of where i'm from,
and it was then that i realized:
i should write about
kelo.
kelo was something i'd known about all my life, but knew little about.
i knew my mom had worked at nldc, the corporation at the heart of the case,
and that my dad had worked, for a time, at the pfizer complex near fort trumbull.
i also knew that the case was near–infamous and usually misconstrued.
i did a little light research into the case,
and the only articles i could find on it were from legal journals and publications,
the same went for books: almost solely published by legal groups and law scholars
[with the exception of one or two questionable non–fiction books].
i knew that primary research was the focal point of the thesis requirement,
since their goal is to make academics out of us,
and decided that there was no better topic to write about:
there was no historical literature on
kelo, very few popular writings,
and none of them seemed to put all the pieces of the case together.
i'd found the perfect topic.
once i'd decided on
kelo and figured out what i was gonna write about,
i was faced with an unfortunate realization:
i knew jack shit about eminent domain.
before i could even conceive of writing anything about
kelo,
i first had to figure out what in the hell the basics of eminent domain were.
so, for a full three weeks over the summer,
i spent my time in the law library with a 2 foot high stack of legal texts.
much to my surprise, i found the topic both interesting and easy to pick up on,
which made my transition from federal to connecticut law that much easier.
of all the things i'm grateful for concerning this thesis,
i'm most grateful that i was genuinely interested in the legal aspect of it.
if i'd found eminent domain law boring and dry and imcomprehensible,
there's a decent chance i would've changed topics about six months ago.
after i'd slogged through about 5000 pages worth of legal text
[i promise you that is not an overstatement
i read 3 books that were 1000+ pages, and four that were between 400–700 pages],
and as i started reading primary and secondary sources about
kelo,
i was again faced with a rather stark reality:
virtually all of my sources were one–sided.
they almost all took up arms against the city and against the
kelo ruling.
there was very little diversity in their opinions,
and there was a metric shit–tonne of rhetoric and biased sprinkled into their writings.
the books and articles all became one angry haze after another,
and took none of the context or circumstances of the case into consideration.
i was basically reading publication after publication lambast my hometown,
and i was staggered by it.
i had never known new london to be as egregious and uncaring as it was portrayed,
and i refused to believe that the city was flagrantly abusive and willfully acting illegally,
at least not without concrete and indisputable proof.
and so it was that i changed my focus and goal:
i wasn't simply going to explain the case as a legal decision,
i was going to tell the story of new london, fort trumbull,
and explain what happened leading up to the decision to use eminent domain.
it wasn't enough to explain what eminent domain was and how it was legal:
i had to show what new london was like, what it had gone through,
what the people of fort trumbull were like, what they had gone through,
and how the city planned to change its waterfront.
so much for struggling to figure out how to write 50 pages.
writing my thesis was by far one of the biggest challenges i've ever faced.
first off, how do you even tackle something that massive?
i knew it would take lots of organization and planning,
but that means nothing when you're staring at a blank word document,
completely at a loss on how to begin.
i had no idea how to do justice to everything that was involved with this project,
and constantly struggled with how to be fair to everyone involved.
i couldn't victimize or demonize the residents of fort trumbull,
any more than i could demonize or apologize for the city.
objectivity is a tricky thing to utilize.
you have have to be detached, appraising, and not take anything for granted,
but you can't let yourself dehumanize people or circumstances.
you have to give all the facts, but not skew them for others,
and you have to present both sides of the argument, while taking only one side.
no matter what anyone else says,
that is the single most difficult thing to achieve in writing.
i won't lie to you and say i achieved optimal objectivity when writing this,
because, after all, i'm human like the rest of you,
but i strove for it nonetheless.
i know i haven't managed to eliminate bias from it
[and, truthfully, you could argue that i wouldn't be able to,
considering where my parents worked],
but i did my damnedest to be factual and honest about
kelo.
i did my diligence in researching the hell out of my topic,
and did as much as i could for a student with limited resources.
for a while now i've been unsure what to do with my thesis.
should i try publishing it? should i try to make it into a book?
i didn't want the last eight months to ultimately result in nothing
[and by nothing i mean sitting in a library surrounded by other theses not being read],
so i decided that the best thing to do would be to publish it myself [so to speak].
it's a good paper that tells an important story and provides important information,
and it would be selfish and stupid to keep it to myself.
i hope that at least some of find this thesis informative and interesting,
and that it helps change at least a few preconceived notions.
or, at the very least, makes you think.
okay, rambling over. please read my thesis and pass it along. kthnxbai.
