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December 4, 2011
More from the file in the case challenging economic development grants: the influence of politics, the legacy of AY eminent domain litigation
Atlantic Yards Report
A few more pieces from the file in the case (as I described November 28) unsuccessfully challenging the state's practice of economic development grants as violating the state Constitution's ban on gifts to private undertakings.
The corruption of state politics
From the initial plaintiffs' brief, 9/15/08:
Complaints about state politics being dominated by “Three Men in a Room,” the Governor, Speaker and Majority Leader, are legion. What makes this corrupt regime possible is the flagrant disregard of the Constitution, both in appropriating grants to favored corporations and in allowing those three officials to secretly choose the recipients of the illegal largesse. As pointed out in the complaint, many recipients of grants return the favor by making campaign contributions to influential legislators. This further increases their power over the rank and file legislators who need this money at election time.
From the 8/4/08 complaint:
- There are well over 100 grants to chambers of commerce, groups that supposedly espouse the principles of free private enterprise.
- On information and belief, recently a candidate for state legislature in Upstate New York approached a chamber of commerce official for support and was told the group could not support him as they were getting state money from the incumbent.
- This anecdote illustrates the corrupting influence of corporate welfare in our extraordinarily non-competitive political system.
The influence of eminent domain litigation
The Atlantic Yards eminent domain case, known as Goldstein, played a key role in the 1/10/11 brief from the state as defendant:
B. Appropriations For The Purpose Of Fostering Economic Development Are For A Public Purpose.
This Court has recognized that promotion of economic development is a valid objective of governmental action. The issue has presented itself primarily in cases involving condemnation of real property, where the Court has confirmed that “removal of urban blight” is a “recognized public purpose or ‘use’ ” and therefore “a proper, and, indeed, constitutionally sanctioned, predicate for the exercise of the power of eminent domain.” Matter of Goldstein v. New York State Urban Dev. Corp.... The determination that economic development in the form of the removal of urban blight is a public purpose sufficient to justify a taking of private property necessarily implies that economic development is a also sufficiently public purpose to justify an expenditure of public funds. Indeed, a “public purpose” requirement supporting a taking of private property should be at least as stringent as a public purpose requirement supporting the expenditure of public funds.
In the Goldstein and Kaur cases, this Court also made clear that the determination of whether a governmental action serves a public purpose is a legislative rather than a judicial task.
Of course, the "legislative" task in the case of Atlantic Yards was determined not by the legislature but by a purportedly (to the defense) independent public benefit corporation, the Empire State Development Corporation.
Some reformers think that the burden should be higher when eminent domain is conducted by such an unelected body, compared to an elected one.
Posted by steve at December 4, 2011 10:57 PM