by Dane Roberts
Daily Lobo columnist
Keep an eye on the deed to your home. In case you didn't hear, over the summer the Supreme Court decided that cities could take homes away from their owners and turn them over to for-profit development corporations.
The city of New London, Conn., wanted to use eminent domain powers - usually reserved to make way for roads, parks and other public projects - to buy and sell citizens' homes to a private developer in a revitalization effort the city said was necessary for economic development and to increase tax revenue.
A handful of homeowners decided that, no thank you, they were happy with their homes and went to court to defend their right to decide when and if to sell. The case - Kelo v. New London - was decided 5-4 in favor of the city of New London.
Cities, in principle, were given the green light to take any property and give it to businesses that would generate more tax revenue - a boon for city governments and big businesses, who can work in concert to do about anything they want.
It would be easy to conclude that this is another case of Washington's snug place in the pocket of corporate America.
As the argument goes, it's the same thing we've seen over and over: corporate interests beating out the public good. If you have a pulse and have spent time on a college campus, you know the story. A war against Iraq for the benefit of oil companies. Dirty industries given the go-ahead to pollute by Congress and President Bush.
The problem of corporate influence, as the line goes, extends to both major political parties, but is most obvious and outrageous among conservative Republicans. According to this theory, the GOP exploits a free-market ideology to cloak a greed-driven agenda to make themselves and their corporate cronies rich.
Democrats, on the other hand, while no saints, at least push for some environmental regulations and social programs - throwing some bones to the people instead of the powerful.
Democrats for the people. Republicans for the powerful. They each toe their respective lines in the class war, and it's a nice tidy story.
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With this subconscious class-warfare mentality, I delved into the Supreme Court decision to find out who was responsible for the outrage of undermining the common man's right to a home. I imagined Dick Cheney's buddy, the arch-conservative Antonin Scalia, gleefully giving his CEO friends dibs on the homes of the working class. I imagined black-tie gala celebrations for the offending justices thrown by big-money developers, thanking them for their new cash cow - turning poor neighborhoods into luxury condominiums.
Then I looked at the facts.
Justice Scalia? Well, he was in the minority who voted to protect homeowners' property. What about Clarence Thomas, another bogeyman of the left? Turns out he was in the minority, too. In fact, the decision, for the most part, fell along traditional liberal-conservative lines, with the conservative justices voting in the minority and liberal justices voting to allow New London's use of eminent domain.
Whoops! If you were to predict the votes based on class allegiances, as I had subconsciously done, you would have been totally wrong. But if you were apt to do that in the first place, it probably means you're a victim - just like me - of spending too much time on campus, where class-based thinking is still predominant.
Could it be that my high school civics classes, where I learned that most political disputes are about the proper role of government, with nothing about defending class interests, were more accurate than the rhetoric on campus?
Could it be that the liberal justices voted for New London because they have a general philosophy that gives government a more prominent role in shaping outcomes?
Could it be that bad ol' Antonin Scalia's decisions that protect businesses from government interference reflect a genuine belief in private property rights, not an affection for CEOs?
Of course, I'm not saying that Washington is never guilty of giving favors to corporate interests. And it is true that campus thought has some important criticisms of American foreign policy. But when it comes to domestic politics, the shoe of class warfare doesn't quite fit.
You might want to keep that in mind during your few years in this peculiar place we call academia.
