The Institute for Justice had bold aspirations for the Kelo v. New London case.

Before the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, the Institute had been battling in state courts from Ohio to Connecticut to prevent governments from using their eminent domain powers to promote economic development. Kelo gave its attorneys the chance to secure a broad federal ruling that would restrain the ability of government to take private property.

Such a ruling would have upset 50 years of precedent, however, and the court declined Thursday to impose the sort of straitjacket the Institute was seeking. But the decision still does not cripple conservative property-rights watchdogs such as the Institute for Justice and the Pacific Legal Foundation, for whom a Supreme Court victory was the ultimate prize.

It simply sends their fight back to the states.

Although the Supreme Court said Thursday that governments can use their condemnation power to foster private development, state courts can invoke their own constitutions to narrow the scope of eminent domain, as the Michigan Supreme Court did this spring. State legislatures can also modify their laws to strengthen the rights of property owners.

“We emphasize that nothing in our opinion precludes any state from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. “Indeed, many states already impose public use requirements that are stricter than the federal baseline.”

Utah became the first state to do this when Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed Senate Bill No. 184 into law this March. The law forbids redevelopment agencies from using eminent domain for projects such as sports arenas, and it places a one-year moratorium on blight condemnations to give the legislature time to decide how badly a property has to deteriorate before the government has the right to seize it.

State Sen. Curtis Bramble, the Republican who introduced the legislation, said support gelled after the city of Ogden tried to take three houses that were standing in the way of a Wal-Mart.

“Property rights are the rights to own, possess and enjoy property, and they are what sets America apart from most other countries,” Bramble said. “The government power to take property needs to be very limited in scope. I can't think of a circumstance where you should seize one person's private property and turn around and give to another private interest for development. To me, that's just untenable.”

Bramble said the bill encountered some resistance from mayors who believed development would stymie without the tool of eminent domain. However, he said the Utah League of Cities and Towns, while never endorsing the legislation, decided not to oppose it.

“There were some mayors who were quite exercised and rather aggressive in their opposition, but there were also many mayors and city councilors who saw how abuses of eminent domain were out of control,” Bramble said.

In Connecticut, House Minority Leader Robert Ward, R-North Branford, has waged a lonesome battle in the legislature to rein in Connecticut's eminent domain laws.

Ward proposed a ban on taking residential property for private development except in the case of blight, but his bill died without a vote. But the Republican leader saw an invitation in the court's majority opinion for states to revisit and reform their own laws, and said he would redouble those efforts when the legislature convenes again next year.

“What I ran into this year ... was a statement that we shouldn't take any action until after the court reviews it,” Ward said. “I argued that we should provide our citizens with rights whether or not the Supreme Court was prepared to. But now that we know the Supreme Court will not give private homeowners this level of protection, the legislature should.”

While no state other than Utah has imposed a wholesale ban on using eminent domain for private development, some states have found ways to shore up the rights of property owners without depriving government of a powerful tool for promoting growth.

The Virginia legislature passed a law this year that helps property owners push for higher compensation when their land is taken by eminent domain. If a jury awards an owner at least 30 percent more than the price offered by a development authority, the owner is entitled under the new law to recoup appraisal fees for his property and the cost of bringing up to three expert witnesses to court.

In Missouri, a Republican state representative introduced a bill this spring that would have allowed property owners to hire his own appraisers when the government tried to take their land through eminent domain. If the owner and the government could not agree on a price, the bill, which died in committee, would have introduced a panel of three disinterested commissioners, including a county assessor, to set a dollar value.

Steve Hobbs, the legislator who introduced the bill, said by cell phone from the fields of his 600-acre farm that he understood the need to balance business development with the rights of owners to reap the value of their land.

“In state of Missouri, we've had some tremendous abuses by municipalities who make blight definitions that are just terrible,” Hobbs said. “We've had areas in Kansas City that were declared blighted 15 years before any development was done on that property. Can you imagine what that does to the property values in those areas? I'm a big fan of economic development, but we have to protect people's rights.”

Timothy Hollister, a land-use attorney with the Hartford firm Shipman and Goodwin who organized a forum on Kelo this winter, said the case put property rights in the national spotlight even if it did not result in a victory for the homeowners.

“Regardless of how the case has now come out, its legacy has already been to start a national debate about the fairness of eminent domain” Hollister said Thursday. “The Supreme Court was interpreting the federal Constitution, but every state is still allowed to be more protective of property rights. If Kelo had risen in Michigan, it would have come out the other way.”

Rossi quits after ruling:  Judge rejects GOP challenge
By Jerry Cornfield, Everett, WA Herald Writer
Published: Tuesday, June 7, 2005

WENATCHEE - Republican Dino Rossi ended his quest for governor Monday hours after a judge rejected his contest of the election because it lacked proof that Gov. Christine Gregoire won as a result of illegal votes and bureaucratic blunders.

"I don't make this decision lightly, and I don't make it with bitterness or a hard feeling," Rossi said in declaring he would not appeal the decision of Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges.

The judge, in a ruling that took nearly an hour to read, spoke with certitude that the sum of the sloppiness described in a two-week trial failed to meet legal standards required for tossing out an election result.

"Unless an election is clearly invalid, when the people have spoken their verdict should not be disturbed by the courts," he said. "There is no evidence in this record that Ms. Gregoire received any illegal votes."

Bridges repelled each and every allegation made by Republican Party attorneys in the trial. He said there was no evidence to "suggest fraud or intentional misconduct," changing of ballots, stuffing of ballot boxes or efforts to "manipulate" the election.

Democratic attorneys embraced following the decision.

"I think it is pretty much a legal home run on all fronts," Demo- cratic attorney Kevin Hamilton said immediately after the decision. "There was no fraud. He said it repeatedly. It's going to be very difficult to overcome."

Rossi alluded to the difficulty as the reason for his announcement.

"With today's decision and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I'm ending the election contest," he said.

"I continue to believe that mounting this election challenge and shining the light on the various problems in our election system was the right thing to do," Rossi added.

Gregoire watched Rossi's statement on television before heading to Tacoma to speak at a commencement ceremony and on to the airport where she was flying to Boston to attend her daughter's law school graduation.

"She's very pleased," Gregoire spokeswoman Althea Cawley-Murphree said. "This will let us all move on and start dealing with the issues of importance to the state."

Rossi's announcement came one day shy of five months since he and seven registered voters, including Paul Elvig of Everett, filed the contest petition.

Rossi had spent $6 million trying to win the office Nov. 2 then endured three counts of the 2.8 million ballots cast in the election. Rossi lead after the first count by 261 votes. The closeness triggered an automatic recount, and Rossi led again, by 42 votes. Gregoire won the third and final tally, a hand count, by 129 votes.

In filing the contest petition Jan. 7, Rossi said he wanted to clear away the cloud of uncertainty on who won. On Monday, he said that what was missing in Bridges' ruling was "who got the most legal votes."

Rossi said he also took the legal tact to "get to a new vote so we can have a legitimately elected governor" and to "clean up" the election system, especially in King County.

"It doesn't look like we will be achieving those goals today," he said.

Earlier in the day, Elvig said he was not surprised by the judge's decision and wouldn't push Rossi to appeal.

"I believe it was a lawsuit that had to be filed," he said. "I'm not surprised by the outcome. Obviously you're asking a judge to do something very extraordinary."

In the trial, no one disputed illegal votes were cast by felons, in the name of dead people or by people voting more than once. Also hundreds of absentee and provisional ballots were improperly counted.

Using numbers from both Republican and Democratic attorneys, Bridges concluded there were 1,678 illegal votes cast. But unless Republicans linked those votes with a candidate, so they could be subtracted from that candidate's vote total, Bridges could not nullify the election.

"This election may not be set aside because the number of illegal or invalid votes exceeds the margin of victory, because the election contest statute requires that the petitioners must show it changed the election result," Bridges said.

In the trial, Republicans offered a mathematical means of apportioning the ballots known as proportional deduction. Had Bridges used it, they said, Rossi would have won.

Bridges didn't use it, even going so far as to call it flawed and not "consistent with generally accepted scientific standards." Moreover, he said, if he did apply it to all the felons, Gregoire still would have emerged the winner.

Bridges said for a judge to "pick a number" and apply the proportional deduction method in this case "would constitute the ultimate act of judicial egotism and judicial activism which neither the voters for Mr. Rossi or Miss Gregoire should condone."

When Bridges took the bench at 9 a.m., a nervous silence overcame the Chelan County auditorium that had been the courtroom for the two-week trial.

Reading comments written on sheets of yellow paper, he expressed frustration with widespread deficiencies in the running of elections and rebuked King County for numerous problems, blaming it in part on officials not taking responsibility.

He said he couldn't repair the troubles of that county or the state from the bench.

"This court is not in the position to fix the deficiencies in the election process," Bridges said. "However, the voters are in a position to demand of their legislative and executive bodies that remedial measures be taken immediately."

Snohomish County Auditor Bob Terwilliger took Bridges' words to heart.

"All of us learned from this experience," he said. "All of us are reviewing our internal controls so we can track every ballot that comes through the door."

EVERETT - Snohomish County could save more than $1 million next year if it mothballs its touch-screen machines and conducts elections entirely by mail ballot.

But four Snohomish County Councilmen say they're not ready to end the tradition of voting at the polls, despite the projected savings and passage of a new state law encouraging conversion to vote-by-mail elections.

"We're not interested," Council Chairman Gary Nelson said Monday.  Council Members John Koster, Jeff Sax and Dave Gossett each said they are unwilling to revamp the process now.  Councilman Kirke Sievers was unavailable for comment.

"I'm old school," Koster said. "People should go to the polls to vote unless they can't be there."

The issue is emerging as a result of two new state laws. One allows counties to switch to mail ballot elections on a vote of the county council.  The other requires counties using electronic voting machines to equip them with devices that provide a paper record for voters to review before transmitting their choices. The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2006.

Snohomish County has 1,000 machines and would need to spend as much as $1.5 million to buy enough devices for them.

Those machines are serving a decreasing percentage of voters at the county's 149 polling places. In November, 39 percent of voters went to the polls and the rest voted by mail. By 2008, it is predicted that 80 percent of county voters will cast ballots by mail.  Early next month, county Auditor Bob Terwilliger and election manager Caroline Diepenbrock will deliver a report to the County Council comparing the costs of all-mail ballot elections versus buying the verifiable paper audit trail devices.

"We are going to make a presentation. There are monetary and policy issues with both," Terwilliger said.  He said the final report should offer council members different scenarios that might involve buying fewer devices.

"It isn't just up or down on this," Terwilliger said.  Initial numbers in the report show the cost would be $1.31 for each of the county's 359,200 registered voters if elections were conducted by mail only.  If the county buys the equipment for the touch-screen machines, the cost of an election will be $11.66 per poll voter plus $1.34 per absentee voter. Those are based on 142,464 poll voters and 216,836 absentee voters -the totals in the November election.

Diepenbrock said the report accounts for a variety of charges and savings, including higher bills for postage and envelopes with mail-ballot elections and savings from not opening poll places and hiring fewer election day workers.  The biggest difference is the devices; each one costs about $1,000 and the county will want at least 1,500 to ensure there is adequate backup if there are breakdowns.

Gossett said he is looking forward to the report.

"We need to know all the consequences and what might result from switching to all-mail ballots," he said. "It's good to have the option, but I'm not prepared to do it."

Sax said it was simpler years ago.  "Maybe we should go back to the Dark Ages with paper and marker," he said.

The state Freedom of Information Commission will lose its executive director at the end of the year.  Mitchell W. Pearlman, who has been director since the commission was formed three decades ago, says he is retiring to make way for a new generation of leadership.

Pearlman is general counsel to the commission and oversees a $1.6 million budget and 15 full-time employees. He has also become an internationally recognized expert on open government.  He says he wants his successor to be Colleen M. Murphy, the commission's managing director and associate general counsel. The five-member commission will decide on his replacement.

Pearlman plans to continue consulting on open government issues throughout the world.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell made a tightly scripted, highly anticipated appearance before a legislative committee Wednesday to urge passage of ethics and campaign finance reforms.

Connecticut governors rarely appear before legislative committees, but Rell's testimony was calculated to generate momentum for what she hopes will be the signal achievement of her first year as chief executive.

Rell, who became governor in July after an impeachment inquiry and federal corruption investigation forced the resignation of John G. Rowland, told lawmakers they must embrace reform in 2005.

"I can tell you the public is ready for change. The public is demanding that we give them confidence again in their state government," Rell said. "You never thought you would be responsible for that, but you truly are."

The Republican governor and the Democratic legislature agree on the broad goal of getting special-interest money out of Connecticut politics. Their approaches are different, and both sides maneuvered for advantage Wednesday.

Rell has proposed a half-dozen bills, including a ban on campaign contributions from state contractors and lobbyists, lower limits on other contributions, restrictions on political action committees, new state contracting rules and a restructured ethics commission.

Democratic legislative leaders favor the public financing of campaigns as the only sure way to limit the influence of special interests. Rell is opposed to public financing, though in remarks to reporters she signaled a willingness to compromise.

"My position hasn't changed," she said, "but I've also been around this building long enough to know that you never know how a bill's packaged and whether it includes other provisions that I may support - whether the language is changed to, perhaps, say something like a pilot program."

New Jersey is experimenting with a pilot program involving the public financing of campaigns in a limited number of legislative districts, a Rell spokesman said.

Her testimony before the government administration and elections committee Wednesday made for less than engaging political theater.

Rell closely followed a prepared text. Unlike other witnesses to testify at legislative hearings, she left without taking questions from committee members, who listened politely as Rell read a statement for nearly 20 minutes.

"I have to say with some disappointment that we would have loved the opportunity to be able to question you personally," the committee's co-chairman, Rep. Christopher Caruso, D-Bridgeport, told Rell.

Rell did not respond.

Her refusal to field questions derailed plans by at least one committee member, Rep. David D. McCluskey, D-West Hartford, to grill Rell about what he calls her newfound advocacy for reform after 9½ years as the lieutenant to a corrupt governor.

"Apparently, the governor has been cryogenically frozen for the last 10 years, because all of a sudden these are new initiatives," said McCluskey, who says the Republican governor is recycling many Democratic proposals.

McCluskey said he resented Rell's call during her State of the State address Jan. 5 for the legislature to pass her reform package in 30 days. "I'm frustrated," McCluskey said. "I don't want her to capitalize on this."

Other longtime proponents of campaign finance reform were more sanguine, including Caruso and his co-chairman, Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, as well as good-government activists.

"Any time the state's highest elected official talks about the need for comprehensive campaign finance reform, we're all on board with that," said Andy Sauer of Common Cause. "We realize her plan is different from our plan, but she's always kept an open mind. And she's always asked us to keep an open mind."

Rowland vetoed a campaign finance reform bill in 2001.

A cornerstone of Rell's proposal is a ban on campaign contributions from state contractors and lobbyists, which she says would end the state's "pay to play" system of contracting.

But Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, said Rell's approach was open to legal challenge. New Jersey was forced to drop its ban on campaign contributions from contractors under pressure from the Federal Highway Administration, which threatened to withhold federal highway funds.

Federal officials said a gubernatorial executive order implementing the New Jersey ban could disqualify low bidders from federal road work.

"I think it's potentially a huge problem," Williams said.

Rich Harris, a spokesman for Rell, said the New Jersey rule banned donors from bidding.

"The governor's proposal is the inverse. If you have a state contract, you can't give" to candidates, he said.

Williams said then if that is true, then Rell's proposal would allow contractors to give until they get a contract.

"How does that end pay to play?" he asked.

HARTFORD -- State officials yesterday testified on proposals aimed at tightening state and municipal ethics standards in the wake of the scandal that drove former Gov. John Rowland from office.

The Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on reforms proposed by Democrats that include establishing a system of public campaign financing and imposing state ethics standards for public officials in cities and towns.

"The people of Connecticut are watching," said Lt. Gov. Kevin Sullivan, a Democrat. "They want to know there will be real consequences for public officials or public employees who breach their duty of faithful public service."

The Democrats bills are similar to one by Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Rell's proposals will be aired Monday, and she is expected to testify before the committee Wednesday.

Ranking Republican committee member, state Rep. Livvy Floren of Greenwich, said some of the suggestions brought out at yesterday's hearing deserve a closer look. One was the suggestion from state Comptroller Nancy Wyman that protections for an innocent spouse or dependents be built into a bill that would strip the pension of any public employee found guilty of a crime related to abusing his or her public service.

Floren also wants to take a look at a public campaign funding model used in Nebraska that Sullivan raised. The Nebraska law has politicians agree in advance to limits on their campaign spending raised from private sources. If the limits are broken, then public money is released to an opponent's campaign to level the playing field.

"It's something I want to study," Floren said. "It sounds like a very rational approach. I'm very concerned because I don't like diverting tax money to politicians."

She worked on a bill last year that would have required cities and towns to adopt the state ethics code or their own code. Compromises were worked out and the bill seemed ripe for passage this year.

But yesterday committee members seemed surprised when they heard from local officials that people in their communities have balked at filing financial disclosure information and many who serve on volunteer boards and commissions would not do so if the disclosures were required.

"As volunteers that's something they just didn't want to do," said Elaine Sarsynski, first selectwoman of Suffield who recently had asked about disclosure at a large meeting with volunteer officials. "It was a matter of privacy."

State Sen. Judith Freedman, R-Westport, the ranking Republican senator on the committee, said she didn't understand why municipal officials would be so resistant.

"I don't know what people are afraid of when they think of this," Freedman said while questioning Sarsynski. "If this is just the general disclosure of source of income, what's the big deal?"

Floren said: "I can see we still have problems with municipal ethics codes and lobbyists. It seems a lot of the things we ironed out last year aren't as wrinkle-free as we thought."

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz testified that later this year she will ask the committee to consider increasing disclosure of campaign finance reports at the city and town level.

Hugh Macgill, chairman of the state Ethics Commission, testified against a bill that would revamp his commission and introduce trial referees -- mostly retired state judges -- into deciding ethics complaints. The commission is functioning well, he said, despite reports surrounding the contested firing of executive director Alan Plofsky during the impeachment hearings and Ethics Commission complaints surrounding Rowland last summer.

"The idea that the commission is a train wreck is simply not the fact," Macgill said.

But Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, who proposed the Ethics Commission reorganization bill, said the commission must be reorganized because it demands too much of its volunteer members. They often must act as judge and jury while handling personnel matters and other responsibilities.

"I believe we ask far too much of people who are essentially volunteers," Williams said.

Rell's proposed ethics reform package, to be debated Monday, is similar in many respects but does not contain a public campaign financing provision, a cornerstone of the Democrats' proposal.

Rell has asked the Legislature to vote on a package of ethics bills before Feb. 9, when she proposes her budget.

• S.B. No. 939 SEN. DELUCA, 32nd DIST.; REP. WARD, 86th DIST. 'AN ACT CONCERNING CODES OF ETHICS', to implement the Governor's budget recommendations.

 
• S.B. No. 940 SEN. DELUCA, 32nd DIST.; REP. WARD, 86th DIST. 'AN ACT CONCERNING THE CITIZENS' ETHICS AND GOVERNMENT INTEGRITY COMMISSION', to implement the Governor's budget recommendations.

 
• S.B. No. 941 SEN. DELUCA, 32nd DIST.; REP. WARD, 86th DIST. 'AN ACT CONCERNING ETHICAL STANDARDS FOR STATE CONTRACTING', to implement the Governor's budget recommendations.

 
• S.B. No. 942 SEN. DELUCA, 32nd DIST.; REP. WARD, 86th DIST. 'AN ACT CONCERNING A STATE CONTRACTING STANDARDS BOARD', to implement the Governor's budget recommendations.

 
• S.B. No. 943 SEN. DELUCA, 32nd DIST.; REP. WARD, 86th DIST. 'AN ACT CONCERNING CAMPAIGN FINANCE', to implement the Governor's budget recommendations.