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Institute for Justice Minnesota Chapter
Backgrounder

Minnesota Homeowners & Small Businesses Battle Eminent Domain Abuse

In a Nutshell

Introduction

Jim Meide is a Korean War veteran who is once again fighting for the rights he believes in.  But this time, the fight is right here in Minnesota.  It is a fight to save his home of 30 years from eminent domain abuse.

After his two-year tour with the Navy, Jim returned to his wife, Beverly, and became a skilled machine tool and die operator.  While raising six children, Jim and Beverly saved enough money to buy their dream home in 1976 on the Mississippi River, in the city of Champlin, about 17 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

The Meides are a vigorous couple in their mid-seventies who want to enjoy their golden years tinkering with their hobbies and having their large family visit.  Their backyard reaches down to the riverbank that is dotted with trees and small boat docks.  The river’s depth and water quality allow for boating, fishing and swimming.  Their home is the perfect place for Jim and Beverly to enjoy days with their children, nine grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.  For Jim and Beverly, their home of nearly 30 years is irreplaceable and, until last year, they had fully expected their family to enjoy it for generations.

But the City of Champlin has different plans—the “Mississippi Crossings and Gateway Plan” to be precise.[i]  The City’s proposed “ten-acre mixed-use village on the Mississippi River” does not include Jim, Beverly or any of the residents of the five nearby apartment buildings and two duplexes.  Instead, the Meides’ home, and the homes of their neighbors, may be demolished to clear the way for a private development, which will include a “9,000 square foot restaurant, 131 condominiums and 24,000 square feet of commercial space,” which the City has proudly announced “is expected to increase property taxes from $90,000 to $600,000.”[ii]

The battle for the Meide’s home began in earnest during February 2005, when the neighborhood rallied against the City’s threatened taking on the eve of oral arguments in Kelo v. City of New London.  During that rally, Jim Meide made his intentions clear:

“This is my house.  I bought this thing; we built it all up; and we got it just the way we want it.  I want to stay here, I want to die here.  It’s that simple.”

But the Meides suffered a setback when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2005 that, under the U.S. Constitution, the government could seize Susette Kelo’s home for private economic development as a “public use.”  The Meides’ resolve was further tested by a pre-Thanksgiving notice from the City’s redevelopment consultant to schedule a structural inspection of their home; otherwise, a drive-by “windshield inspection”[iii] of their home would be conducted.

By Thanksgiving Day 2005, Jim and Beverly understood that the City intended to designate their neighborhood “blighted.”  They knew, under Minnesota law, this designation was needed to create the tax increment-financing district that would pay for the seizure of their home and neighborhood.

Jim, however, is up for another fight.

He has joined a coalition of Minnesotans who are demanding that governments across the state respect the property rights of the Meides, and everyone else.  This coalition is called Minnesotans for Eminent Domain Reform (MNEDR).  It includes the NAACP, Urban League, Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, Minnesota Autodealers Association, Hmong Chamber of Commerce, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Teamsters, former Congressman Tim Penny and others who will urge Minnesota’s legislature to pass legislation that will protect the homes, farms and small businesses of all Minnesotans from eminent domain abuse.

Jim and Beverly Meide are involved because they know that real reform is needed.  Without real reform, they will likely meet the same fate as Cha Fong Lee, who was evicted from his property shortly after Kelo was decided.

Cha Fong Lee, like many Hmong immigrants, was an ally of the United States during the Vietnam War.  He was a soldier who fought on the Laotian-Vietnamese frontlines to stop the transport of troops and weaponry along the Ho Chi Min Trail.  After the war, Lee and his family came under the constant threat of communist persecution.  In 1978, faced with the possibility of being sent to reeducation camp for his role during the war, Lee escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand.  From Thailand, he arranged for his wife and children to follow him.  Soon thereafter, he immigrated to United States along with more than 100,000 Hmong refugees.

With only $50 in his pocket, Lee and his family moved to Fresno, Calif., and started a landscaping and yard work business.  After six years, he earned enough money to open his first grocery store.  And by 1992, he owned and operated successful grocery stores and a video store.

In April 2000, Lee moved to Brooklyn Center, Minn., and purchased a mostly vacant 1950s-era shopping center.  He immediately renovated and leased up the 8.25-acre mall, calling it the Hmong American Shopping Center.  Like millions of immigrants before him, Lee’s efforts met with financial success.  In 2002, he decided to redevelop and expand his property into a “Little Asia,” with town homes, retail shops and an open-air celebration area.  To do so, Lee sought to work with the City of Brooklyn Center Economic Development Authority, but had no idea his outreach would lead him through a gauntlet of EDA-suggested relocation sites and EDA-approved private consultants and developers that would ultimately culminate in the City’s seizure of his property for a private developer of the EDA’s choosing.

During November 2004, soon after Lee failed to proceed with redevelopment and relocation plans “suggested” by the EDA, the Brooklyn Center EDA authorized eminent domain proceedings to seize Lee’s property.  On April 26, 2005, the Brooklyn Center EDA took title to Lee’s property.  Lee has been informed by the EDA that he may now compete with other private developers invited by the EDA to an open-bidding process for the right to develop the former site of his Hmong American Shopping Center.

According to Lee, “I fought for America in the war in Indochina because the U.S. government told me that the Communists would not respect my rights.  Thirty years later, the City of Brooklyn Center ignored my property rights and took my property.  My English is not good enough to tell you how betrayed I feel.”

Cha Fong Lee’s experience with the Brooklyn Center EDA is a striking example of eminent domain abuse in Minnesota.  For more than 20 years, cities like Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, New Brighton and St. Louis Park have rained favors on the politically connected and crowded out what might have been real private development.

After Kelo, people in Minnesota and around the nation are well aware of eminent domain abuses and they are demanding that their local governments’ powers be reformed by state legislatures.

 

Eminent Domain: What It is and How It is Abused

Eminent domain is the governmental power to take private property, including homes, farms and businesses.  Because of the potential for abuse, it has long been called the “despotic power,”[iv] and both the Minnesota and U.S. constitutions restrain it by requiring that it only be used for “public use” with “just compensation” paid.[v] 

Gradually, however, the government ignored the limit of its power and began advancing projects with so-called public “purposes” or that promised public “benefits” rather than public “use.”  This blurring of language—from public use, to public purpose, to public benefit—dramatically lowered the standards under which a government could take your home.

For years, courts abdicated their role as a check on this abuse, and often deferred to whatever claims of “public purpose” a legislature or administrative agency made, no matter how weak.  The resulting erosion of the “public use” requirement led to the appalling outcome of Kelo v. City of New London,[vi] the U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted any government nationwide the license to condemn private property for private economic development under the U.S. Constitution.  This holding gave explicit sanction to a whole category of condemnations in non-blighted areas that were previously in legal doubt, and it actually encourages the wholesale replacement of non-profit establishments, lower income residents and businesses that may be replaced by richer homeowners and fancier businesses.

In short, Kelo unleashed the “despotic power” from the limits of the 5^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Because of Kelo, Minnesotans who want security from government seizure of their property can no longer look to the federal Constitution for protection.  If refuge from eminent domain abuse is to be found anywhere in Minnesota, it will be in the text of the state constitution and state legislative action.

Under the state constitution and new legislation sought by Minnesotans for Eminent Domain Reform, cities could still use eminent domain to create roads and public buildings, to remove genuine blight and protect the public’s health and safety, but what they could no longer do is take property from A and give to B just because B promises to create more jobs and taxes with the land.  If those are legitimate reasons to take someone’s home or small business, then no piece of property in the state is safe from this abuse of government power.

 

Eminent Domain Abuse In Minnesota

Minnesota has a dark history of eminent domain abuses.  Cities throughout the state have long used the power of eminent domain, coupled with bogus “blight” designations, to rain favors on the politically connected and crowd-out what might have been real private development.

Just five years ago, in the infamous Walser Auto Dealership cases,[vii] Richfield, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis, threatened a working-class neighborhood with a blight designation so that it could force homeowners to transfer their homes to private developers.  The removal of this so-called “blight” in order to construct Best Buy’s world headquarters was then upheld as a legitimate “public use.”  And yet, one year later, the court ruled that the very same condemned properties were not “structurally substandard.”  Read together, the Walser cases stand for the proposition that property can be “blighted” without being “structurally substandard,” thus confirming that whatever government says is blighted, can be declared blighted and used as a pretense to take property for politically unpopular private development.

Under today’s loose standards, basically any property not developed in the past five years could be considered “blighted.”

If private property is to be protected, blight definitions must be tightened.

Under the Kelo ruling, Minnesotans lost all federal constitutional protection of their property.  Unless the legislature passes real eminent domain reform, including tightening up the definition of what constitutes blight, there will be no state protection of our homes and businesses.

Moreover, the Walser cases were foreshadowed by many earlier court decisions.  For instance, Walser’s “anything goes” approach to private-to-private takings was explicitly embraced in the 1986 case of City of Duluth v. State, [viii] where the Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld Duluth’s decision to seize an idled Chung King factory and replace it with a private lumberyard, stating “even though a public entity, using its eminent domain powers, turns over parcels to a private entity for use by that private entity, the condemnation will, nevertheless, be constitutional if a public purpose is furthered by such a transfer of land.”  Similarly, in the 1980 case of Minneapolis v. Wurtele, the Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld the seizure of property that was “not yet” blighted but which showed “a trend toward decreasing economic utility and tax base.”[ix] 

Thanks to the Walser-Duluth-Wurtele cases, the right to own property in Minnesota is now contingent on using one’s property in a manner that generates “enough” taxes to satisfy the government and is “economically efficient”—as determined by bureaucrats, city councilmen and the retained consultants of private developers.

Consequently, nobody is safe from eminent domain abuse in Minnesota.

But Minnesota was not built on the ideals of feudalism.  At one time, the Supreme Court of Minnesota confidently declared “every man’s house is his castle,”[x] “the Legislature cannot by its mere fiat make a private use a public use”[xi] and the Minnesota “constitution guards property with the same care that it does life and liberty.”[xii]  The Court’s pronouncements reflected Minnesota’s proud heritage as a territory that was governed by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which declared “no man shall be deprived of his liberty or property” and limited the power of eminent domain to circumstances where “public exigencies” made it “necessary” to take private property for “the common preservation.”  Sadly, when these “fundamental principles” were forgotten and the meaning of “public use” distorted, the seizure of private property for the benefit of a favored few inevitably became Minnesota’s “sovereign power.”[xiii]

 

The Scope of the Problem

The degeneration of property rights in Minnesota is intensifying.  The City of Champlin wants to raze Jim and Beverly Meide’s home to build condos and a retail village.  Similarly, St. Paul wants to displace the Rev. A.Z. Jones and his congregation to make room for a private Community Center.  Additionally, St. Paul is planning to condemn small businesses in West St. Paul’s retail corridor for a private developer’s townhouse and commercial development.[xiv]  Moreover, in Rosemount, at least seven businesses—including a music shop, hardware store and quilt store—in the “Core Block East” neighborhood will likely be condemned to make room for new commercial and residential space.[xv]  These actions just add to the list of notorious takings in Minnesota’s past.  This past includes Minneapolis’ declaring the corner of 50^th & France, across from Edina, a blighted area so it could take a gas station and replace it with the standard formula of trendy shops,[xvi] Brooklyn Center also recently condemned the Hmong American Shopping Center for private development.[xvii] 

Minnesota is not alone in its abuse of eminent domain.  Across the nation, more than 10,000 instances of actual or threatened abuse of eminent domain for private use in just a five-year period of time has been documented by the Institute for Justice.[xviii]  These controversies represent just the tip of the iceberg.  And although state supreme courts and legislatures were invited by the Kelo majority to counteract this trend under their state constitutions,[xix] the Supreme Court of Minnesota in recent history seems to have forgotten what it once understood and upheld.  That’s why a legislative fix right now is essential to help Minnesotans protect what rightfully belongs to them:  their homes, their small businesses, their churches and their farms.

 

Taking Homes for Economic Development—A Bad Public Policy

Government officials often assert that the public will benefit from more tax dollars and jobs.  While some projects may realize those goals, others will fail because eminent domain-led economic development is a flawed public policy; it tempts politicians and developers to over-promise what these projects will actually deliver.

There is a natural ecology to sustainable economic growth, and there are usually economic and cultural reasons why some neighborhoods support a Home Depot or Nordstrom, while others prefer Mom & Pop stores.  Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Target have enough skill to ferret out those neighborhoods that would likely support them; they do not need to use government force to succeed.  Seizing property and slapping stores, office complexes and condos where they would otherwise not exist in a truly free and open market is a formula that likely leads to continuing subsidies and not to economic growth.  Minnesotans only have to look to the State’s open spigot of incentives to Northwest Airlines to know that some corporations never get off welfare.

Moreover, politicians and the public must come to recognize that corporations do not last forever.  The destructive creativity of markets caused once-great companies such as Woolworth’s, Ben Franklin Stores, and Montgomery Ward’s to fail.  Government officials 40 years ago may have looked at those companies in the same way that today’s government officials admire Best Buy, Home Depot and Target.  It is foolhardy for government and private planners to bank on the perpetual existence of private corporations.  Minnesotans are reminded of this lesson by their recollections of Pillsbury, Control Data, Honeywell and Cray Research.

Even where visionary redevelopment is warranted, who ordinarily would have the best perspective for judging the real economic potential of an area?  An actual stakeholder who will bear the full cost of a bad investment decision, or a city planner who uses someone else’s money and acquires land by the power of eminent domain?  Even if a city planner is constrained by an “integrated plan,” are the best economic decisions usually made by tenured bureaucrats who have no direct interest in the outcome of their planning?

Subsidies, the seizure of private property, and more government planning are not the keys to sustainable economic growth.  Aside from the general lessons of history, there are many specific instances of eminent domain boondoggles.

Newport, Ky., used $12 million in borrowed money to force out residents of the Cote Brillante neighborhood of 100 homes for a shopping center called Newport Pavilion.  But the City was left scrambling after the designated developer backed out of the property.[xx]  Similarly, the City of Sunset Hills, Mo.,  decided to help developer Novus Companies wipe out the entire Sunset Manor subdivision of 254 homes and 18 businesses for a development of retail and office buildings called “Main Street at Sunset.”  Many property owners did not want to sell, and on July 12, 2005, the City authorized the developer to go to court to condemn 85 of the properties.  But on August 22, Novus lost financing for the acquisitions.[xxi]  As a result, the neighborhood now sits partially disassembled while officials try to figure out what to do next.

Given the track record of eminent domain-initiated economic development, it is no wonder that U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, the author of the majority opinion in Kelo, declared two months after the ruling that the opinion was “entirely divorced from my judgment as concerning the wisdom of the program . . . my own view is that the free play of market forces is more likely to produce acceptable results in the long run than the best-intentioned plans of public officials,” and, as a matter of policy, the result in Kelo was “unwise.”[xxii]

 

Think Redevelopment Requires Eminent Domain Abuse? Think Again.

Most large cities in the United States were built long before “economic development” takings proliferated.  When the City of Seattle redeveloped part of its downtown in 1996, it did so the old-fashioned way—without force, but through private negotiation.  City officials and developers worked together to create more than one million square feet of new retail space, generating a 15.8 percent increase in taxable sales and a 4.4 percent increase in retail jobs.  This was a classic case of targeted urban revitalization, and Seattle accomplished its goals while simultaneously respecting private property rights.[xxiii]Defenders of eminent domain for private development all too often argue that eminent domain is absolutely necessary.  Bart Peterson, on behalf of the National League of Cities, testified, “If cities did not have the tool of eminent domain, it would be impractical to undertake large economic development projects.”[xxiv]  And Georgetown Law Professor John D. Echeverria, a supporter of the Kelo decision, argued, “Without the eminent domain power, we would not have…many of our most successful downtown redevelopment projects, like the Baltimore waterfront.”[xxv]

They could not be more mistaken.

Many of the most successful economic redevelopment projects throughout history stayed clear of eminent domain.  Walt Disney constructed Disney World without condemning or threatening to condemn a single piece of property.  He and his company’s subsidiaries purchased 100 percent of the land for the Florida amusement park through voluntary negotiation.[xxvi]  The Rouse Company created an entirely new city from scratch in Howard County, Md., purchasing more than 15,000 acres from 140 different owners in 1963.[xxvii]  The Commonwealth Development Group assembled 21 separate parcels of land in Providence, R.I., and built an enormous shopping center—now a vibrant commercial hotspot that’s created jobs and tax revenue, attracted hotels to the area, and become a cornerstone of growth and revitalization.[xxviii]

In 1993, Scottsdale, Ariz., designated four redevelopment areas for seizure.  But when the City removed two of these designations, thereby freeing the affected areas from the threat of eminent domain, it reported an influx of billions of dollars in private development money.  Areas that at one time were thought to need governmental involvement have seen unprecedented prosperity and revitalization by government getting out of the way of private development.[xxix] 

Economic development happens every day without eminent domain.  There are countless ways in which cities and commercial developers can improve the aesthetics of a given area, attract private enterprise and even facilitate infrastructure improvements to generate increased tax revenue and job growth, none of which require forcibly transferring land deeds from one person to another.

Since the 1970s, Main Street Programs, sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, have offered grants and loans for façade improvements, facilitated comprehensive grassroots-based economic development and revitalized entire neighborhood commercial districts.[xxx]  The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Dollar Home Program allows local government to purchase abandoned, foreclosed homes that have been on the market for more than six months; the properties are then renovated and often sold to low- to moderate-income families, benefiting the city as well as the new owners.[xxxi]  On a much smaller scale, Frank Cassidy, a building inspector in Bonita Springs, Fla., has worked with homeowners to restore the appearance of the exteriors of their homes.  Once a property is named for aid under the “Beautify Bonita” project, Cassidy solicits tax-deductible donations and recruits volunteers to do the repairs.[xxxii]

Similarly, along what was once known as “bubbly creek” in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, a developer acquired several large parcels of industrial and commercial land between 1999 and 2002, and tackled the difficult task of acquiring or clearing numerous abandoned railroad right-of-ways that had previously prevented development.  Today, that property is occupied by nearly 100 newly constructed luxury homes on 15 city blocks, with at least 10 more city blocks planned for future development.[xxxiii]

As these examples indicate, accumulating large parcels of land is clearly possible without condemning homes and small businesses against the will of their owners.  John Norquist, former mayor of Milwaukee and president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, said it best: “The economy of this country was built by the private sector . . . .  Today, the same economic incentives which have always attracted private investment and spawned sustainable development continue to draw private real estate developers all over America.”[xxxiv]

The private sector has the expertise to effectively evaluate risk, to weigh the complexities of real estate development with the likelihood of success, and to ultimately generate the sustainable job and revenue growth that cities and municipalities seek.  The remaining defenders of eminent domain abuse scare Americans into believing they must choose between private property rights and economic growth.  Fortunately, the evidence is clear and compelling—Americans can have both.

 

Eminent Domain for Private Development is Dangerous and Wrong

If the promise of greater taxes and jobs is justification enough to take someone’s property, then no one is safe.  Practically any home in the United States would generate more tax dollars as a Target or a Ritz Carlton Hotel.  Small, locally owned businesses will probably provide fewer jobs than an office complex.  And houses of worship or lodges of benevolent societies produce no tax dollars and few jobs.  The implications of the jobs-and-taxes mantra is that everyone’s home, everyone’s business is up for grabs.  Citizens just have to hope that no one gets a bright idea to build an office park where their homes or businesses stand.  Using jobs and taxes as a justification for eminent domain gives bureaucrats (and developers) unlimited power to seize property.

Condemning property for jobs and taxes not only has dangerous practical implications, it is also deeply immoral.  The idea that one person will be forced to sacrifice her peace and happiness so that someone else can profit financially is repugnant to the principles of a free society and the core values that led to America’s founding.  It cannot be tolerated. 

 

We’re Not Going to Take It

Before Kelo, the signs of a grassroots rebellion against abusive eminent domain actions existed across the nation.  In Baltimore County, Md., legislation that expanded the power of eminent domain beyond its constitutional limits provoked a revolt by concerned property owners and citizen activists who placed a referendum on the November 2000 ballot to eliminate the power.[xxxv]  The expanded eminent domain power was defeated at the ballot box by a 70-to-30 percent vote.[xxxvi]  In November 2000, Pittsburgh residents defeated a proposal to demolish about one-fifth of the downtown area and displace more than 120 businesses so the City could give the land to a developer to build an urban shopping mall.[xxxvii]  Also, citizens in New Rochelle, N.Y., scuttled a plan to condemn an entire neighborhood to make way for an IKEA department store.[xxxviii]  And groups of citizen activists who oppose eminent domain abuse sprung up all over Ohio in communities around Evendale, Lakewood, West Chester, Willowick and Norwood.

Kelo transformed a grassroots rebellion into a mainstream movement.  In July 2005, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey reported that private property rights was the most important legal issue to Americans, well ahead of parental notification requirements for abortions by minors and right-to-die laws.[xxxix]

Overwhelming majorities in every major poll taken after the decision have condemned Kelo.  For example, out of a sample of 800 registered voters nationwide, Retail Traffic Magazine reported that 84 percent disagreed with the decision.[xl]  In its independent poll, Quinnipiac University reported 88 percent of Connecticut voters disagreed with the proposition that private property should be taken for economic development projects.[xli]  Similarly, the University of New Hampshire reported 93 percent of New Hampshire residents opposed the outcome of Kelo.[xlii]  Likewise, 86 percent to 90 percent of New Jerseyans oppose the use of eminent domain for private economic development.[xliii]  And Hampton Roads’ poll indicated that 93 percent of Americans disagreed with the proposition that local governments should be able to seize homes for “private economic development that will produce jobs and tax revenue.”[xliv]

Not surprisingly, the mainstream movement against eminent domain abuse has generated demands for legislative reform.  The Washington Times reported that an American Survey of 800 registered voters nationwide showed 68 percent favoring legislative limits on the government’s ability to take private property away from owners.[xlv]  This call for legislative action was found to be non-partisan, with 62 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans supporting legislation restricting the use of eminent domain.  Similarly, Quinnipiac University reported 89 percent of Connecticut voters wanted the state legislature to pass laws limiting the use of eminent domain.[xlvi]  This result was non-partisan as well, with 91 percent of Republicans, 85 percent of Democrats, and 94 percent of independents supporting such limits.  Likewise, Mason-Dixon Polling indicates 89 percent of Floridians support greater restrictions on eminent domain.[xlvii]

 

Real Eminent Domain Reform for Minnesotans

Businesses are born, grow and move to Minnesota because of its people, schools and transportation systems.  If needed, cities have plenty of tools to attract businesses, such as tax incentives, infrastructure development, accelerating permitting, zoning changes, grants and loans.  It is bad public policy to use abusive eminent domain strategies to try to attract businesses by taking land from ordinary people and giving it to politically connected private developers who promise the standard formula of high-end condos built above trendy shops.  In fact, uncertainty about the security of investments can only be expected to discourage the start-ups that generate most new jobs over the long run.  And few good companies will be attracted to Minnesota because of deals cut in the backrooms of city halls.

After the disastrous Kelo decision, Minnesotans are more aware than ever before that Minnesota cities stretch the definition of “public use” beyond its plain meaning and soft-peddle their abuses with talk of public-private partnerships. 

Minnesotans understand that “public use” means taking for something the public will own and use, like a post office or a police station.  Taking property from the poor and giving it to rich developers is Robin Hood in reverse.  It’s bad public policy and Minnesotans want to see that stopped.  Minnesotans demand the Legislature reform eminent domain laws to protect what rightfully belongs to them.  We don’t need proposals that tweak the eminent domain process; we need genuine reform that will protect homeowners. 

Fortunately, the legislation to be introduced by Senator Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook) and Representative Jeff Johnson (R-Plymouth) will offer real reform of Minnesota’s eminent domain laws.  Specifically, the bills will:

• Return Minnesota’s definition of public use to its historical limits of roads, government buildings and utilities while allowing governments to also mitigate nuisance, abandoned property and blight;
• Prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic development as it was used in Kelo;
• Establish a clear and objective test for blight that ends its use as a pretext for economic development; and
• Ensure that just compensation is paid when property is taken for a legitimate public use.

Their bill has attracted support from a wide and diverse group that has come together as a coalition of Minnesotans for Eminent Domain Reform (MNEDR).  The MNEDR coalition members include:

• Farm Bureau Minnesota Chapter
• Farmers Union of Minnesota
• NAACP of Minneapolis and St. Paul
• Minneapolis Urban League
• Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
• Hmong Chamber of Commerce
• Institute for Justice Minnesota Chapter
• Minnesota Alliance of Automotive Service Providers
• Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association
• Minnesota Eminent Domain Institute
• Minnesota Family Council
• Minnesota Petroleum Marketers Association
• Minnesota Trucking Association
• National Federation of Independent Business
• Outdoor Advertising Association of Minnesota
• Former Congressman Tim Penny
• Rev. Bob Battle of the Berean Church of St. Paul
• Rev. A.Z. Jones, Jr. of the Apostolic Faith Temple
• Rev. Loyace Foreman of the New Vision Faith Center
• Other individuals and organizations

 

Coalition Leaders

Lee McGrath, executive director of the Institute for Justice Minnesota Chapter, and Alyssa Schlander, director of government affairs of the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association, are spearheading the legislative efforts of Minnesotans for Eminent Domain Reform.

The Institute for Justice is a nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest law firm that advances a rule of law under which individuals can control their destinies as free and responsible members of civil society. Through strategic litigation, training, communication and outreach, the Institute secures greater protection for individual liberty and illustrates and extends the benefits of freedom to those whose full enjoyment is denied by the government.  Formed in 1991 and headquartered in Arlington, Va., the Institute for Justice has state chapters in Arizona, Washington and Minnesota.

The Minnesota Auto Dealers Association is a 501(c) (6) non-profit voluntary membership organization serving the needs of all 470 franchised new car and truck dealers in Minnesota.  It was established in 1919.  It conducts legal, political, regulatory and educational work on behalf of the dealers.

 

For more information, contact:

Mr. John E. Kramer
Vice President for Communications
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203-1854
jkramer@ij.org
(703) 682-9320

 

Mr. Lee McGrath
Executive Director
Institute for Justice Minnesota Chapter
527 Marquette Avenue, Suite 1600
Minneapolis, MN 55402-1330
lmcgrath@ij.org
(612) 435-3451

 

Ms. Alyssa Schlander
Director of Government Affairs
Minnesota Auto Dealers Association
200 Lothenbach Avenue
West St. Paul, MN 55118-3505
alyssa@mada.org
651-291-2400

 

Key Websites:

Minnesotans for Eminent Domain Reform (www.mnedr.com)

Institute for Justice (www.ij.org)

Castle Coalition (www.castlecoalition.org)