In ‘Folsom Prison Blues,’ Johnny Cash sings, “I hear that whistle blowin’/ I hang my head and cry.” The lyric is jarring because trains are about the freedom to travel, not imprisonment.
Trains propelled human beings into the modern world. Before trains, no human being had ever traveled faster than a horse. They have been integral to the growth of our economy, connecting societies, and providing the comforts we now enjoy. They are big and powerful, they are romantic – they represent freedom. However, when Johnny Cash sings about trains, he’s reminding Folsom Prison inmates about life passing them by because of their lost freedom.
A fight over trains could similarly steal freedom from some Texas residents living along the I-45 corridor.
The fight is about the use of eminent domain and taxpayer backed loans to build a high-speed rail route from Dallas to Houston where a Japanese N700 Shinkansen will travel more than 60 times per day at over 200 mph.
That sounds exciting! But, it isn’t, because many local land owners don’t want a train screaming through their back yard at 200 miles per hour 60 times every day. And, for the government to create a high-speed rail project, it will have to force a lot of people out of their property and put taxpayers on the hook for possibly billions of dollars in loans.
However, that isn’t stopping Texas Central from rollin’ down the track. The problem comes down to private property. Only a few of the proposed routes for the high speed train follow existing tracks or utility lines. Therefore, numerous section of the proposed routes don’t, so Texas Central (TCR) needs to acquire those properties. TCR is threatening, and heavily pursuing, the use of eminent domain to take over the land of objectors by force.
In almost every state the use of eminent domain by private companies is looked down on—even the chaotic Republican primary found time to argue fight over it—but in Texas fighting eminent domain is as ingrained as defending the Alamo. As it should be.
Eminent domain has been a significant issue since before the ink dried on the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment includes a provision to assure by law that the government pay for land that it takes. At that time, it would have been almost heretical to think that private companies would eventually have the right to use eminent domain, but over time the Supreme Court, the federal government, and state governments have been very liberal about the way that they interpret “public use.” A road? Sure. A dam? Why not. A hotel? Well, the public can rent a room there right? The liberal definition of “public use” was most made clear by the Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London in 2005, which confirmed that a private company did have the ability to leverage eminent domain for its own benefit.
There might be legitimate uses of eminent domain, but the evidence supporting that seems to be sparse, especially in the Kelo case as well as the potential use of eminent domain in Texas. There are, however, good arguments that eminent domain is never legitimate and the public seems to agree. After the Kelo ruling a large majority of the public disapproved of the ruling, which led 44 states to eventually amend their own rules regarding eminent domain.
While the legitimacy of eminent domain is in question, the rights of landowners and their concerns regarding the plans to put a high-speed train in their back yards is not. The land owners’ concerns as well as their private property rights should be addressed before any further steps are taken to steal their property.
The Man in Black finishes his country blues song:
Unlike prisoners, land owners shouldn’t be forced to wonder what the life of the people on trains is like. We shouldn’t allow Texas Central Rail to use the force of government to take land.
Charles Sauer is president of the Market Institute.
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