Eminent Domain

No private gain from public pain
Eminent Domain

The Iowa Constitution gives the state the right to take private property for public use, with just compensation. It does not authorize the taking of private property for private use, and this should not be allowed.

A CO2 pipeline built by a private company, with the sons of three former governors (Branstad, Vilsack, Culver) and a former President of the Iowa Board of Regents (Rastetter) as investors, raises a peculiar odor long before the first shovel hits the dirt. That odor does not pass my sniff test.

There is a country where the state can take your land, give it to somebody else, and you have no power to stop them. That country is not America.

12 Responses

    1. Yes, but not precisely.

      What I plan to do, almost all the time, is eliminate bad laws. Therefore I will simply eliminate the laws which allow civil asset forfeiture.

  1. Do you plan to include MidAmerican who is has worked with the state government to force farmers to sell land for wind turbines? 1 acre of good farm land equals out to a lot of money over the years, the farmers are also forced to allow an access road for maintenance to the wind turbine to be built through their land that, according to one of my sources, they are not paid for; over the years this can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars loss for the farmers forced to sell their farmland for not so green energy

    1. Jacob – I have always heard that farmers are paid for these to sit on their ground. I read an article from WindWatch.org about MidAmerican not paying farmers in western Iowa as much as was agreed upon for soil compaction/damages during building the sites. In that article it also mentioned that nearly 31 million dollars was paid to farmers the previous year for leases. Several years ago Windustry.org mentioned in a FAQ leases pay like 4-8k per year per windmill, or 2-3% of revenue from windmill.

  2. That you are against civil asset forfeiture is the best thing I’ve heard all year! Eminent domain is bad (been through it once) but CAF is absolutely terrible. One minute you think you own property and the next you don’t know how it could be gone. People never believe it if I tell them “they” just took it, didn’t pay for it, nothing wrong with it, just wanted it so they took it.
    And now they’re coming for whats left! It’s a long terrible (for me) story I’d like people to hear about. And right here in west Iowa. And there’s nothing I can do about it by myself. Hope to see you on the 5th ?

  3. But there is a city where they can take several houses and land that YOU own, and give it to somebody else, and you have no power to stop them. I wish it wasn’t in western iowa

  4. Eminent domain shouldn’t exist.
    In all but extreme circumstances. Also fair compensation should be given by fair I mean the private market value of property.

    1. A suggestion has been made to have the government pay twice the fair market value for private land, to reduce spurious government purchases.

      Do you have an opinion on this idea? I find it intriguing myself.

  5. Iowa wants to party with drugs. Smoking weed keeps things good. I need some LSD therapy!! Fight for us Rick!

  6. your stop the war on drugs favoring drug use is the only thing stopping me from voting for you. I have 2 relatives that died from there use with smoking grass. One was a brother. I am strongly anti drug and always has been. There is a reason that clinics and doctors request/require Hep B & C tests for people our age, we are the age group that passed the bong or joint and spread hepatitis like an epidemic and now decades later driving up medical, insurance costs and taxes. Alcohol has been bad enough health hazard, medical problem, mental problem, driving up insurance and taxes and if drugs are allowed, it will be twice as bad. My brother was diagnosed with Hep C in 2013, it destroyed his liver until it only had 10% function left. He was told there was a good chance he would develop liver cancer. He died Sept 2022 of liver cancer. I can’t support your drug policy, other than that you make more sense then the other two candidates that only support the views of the far right or farther left, neither having the common sense of the moderates

    1. I’m sorry your family’s history has been so tragic. People who use currently illegal drugs deserve better.

      My policy on the Drug War does not favor drug use at all, and I do not personally recommended it, with the exception of psychedelic therapy under the guidance of a trained therapist, which has been shown 65% effective in eliminating PTSD.

      Research in the countries that have legalized all drug use has shown, however, that legalizing leads to less use, not more. Portugal is the most famous example, after they legalized heroin overdoses plummeted, and heroin use dropped considerably as well.

      The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that all adults ages 18 to 79 years be screened for hepatitis C, even those without symptoms or known liver disease. Obviously that is not limited to cannabis users.

      There is research suggesting people with Hepatitis C should not use marijuana.

      There is also research suggesting cannabis use may sometimes be beneficial for Hepatitis C patients.

      My goal is for a world where prison is no longer a treatment for people who use currently illegal drugs, as I prefer a better educated public and, should a drug user want it, treatment.

      Thank you for your thoughts.

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