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YOU HAVE NO RIGHT: LAW AND JUSTICE - EMINENT DOMAIN
Eminent Domain
In November 2012 Virginia voters will decide whether to ratify a constitutional amendment which would strengthen compensation requirements to property owners for current and future losses of land seized. It would also prohibit the taking of private land for private enterprise, job creation, or economic development. The text of the amendment is as follows:
That the General Assembly shall pass no law whereby private property, the right to which is fundamental, shall be damaged or taken except for public use. No private property shall be damaged or taken for public use without just compensation to the owner thereof. . . . [A] taking or damaging of private property is not for public use if the primary use is for private gain, private benefit, private enterprise, increasing jobs, increasing tax revenue, or economic development, except for the elimination of a public nuisance existing on the property. The condemnor bears the burden of proving that the use is public, without a presumption that it is.
—Proposed Amendment to Article I, Section 11 of the Virginia Constitution