“Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”
That’s how Superman has been introduced since the 1940s. He is a fun power fantasy for kids who fights criminals, aliens and sometimes even corrupt government officials.
If a private company gets its way in Texas, though, it will be an actual 200 mph locomotive reminding adults in Texas 60 times a day that they are powerless against the whims of big government corruption.
Superman would be really useful in Texas right now, because a so-called rail company has been suing landowners to force them to let the company’s surveyors invade their private property.
The company in question is Texas Central. They didn’t exist until 2012. They don’t own a train, a train depot or a piece of track. But in the name of building said items, Texas Central is attempting to manipulate the courts to run over landowner rights using eminent domain.
Texas Central proposed a high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston. But instead of using their own money and purchasing the right of way using the free market, they are resorting to cronyism. High-speed rail is not the same as having Superman flying high through the skies. Building a new railroad means laying tracks right through the backyards of Texas landowners and then driving back and forth each day more than 60 times. The trains will run as often as every 30 minutes, taking only a six-hour break at night to give landowners a rest.
Texas Central is still working on land studies and hasn’t finalized exactly how they’ll use the government to steal the rights of landowners. The rail project is forecasting the first train trip to happen around 2021, and many of the existing deals Texas Central made with some landowners start expiring in 2019 if they haven’t started building.
That is why Texas Central is starting to threaten landowners with legal action.
Fortunately, in one of the first cases to see a judge, Texas Central was forced to withdraw its request. The case involved an attempt to force an unwilling Harris County landowner to give Texas Central access to their property for a survey. The judge questioned the central claim made by the company that Texas Central would experience “imminent harm” if they weren’t allowed on the landowner’s property. This loss was notable, considering that Texas Central picked Harris County for the lawsuit precisely to give themselves the best possible odds to win and set a precedent for future cases.
This is good news in Texas, but around the country we all need to start looking at the use of eminent domain, and we need to start shutting down attempts to use eminent domain solely for the benefit of a private business. Simply put, that’s government picking winners and losers. Government officials don’t have the expertise of venture fund investors, and even venture funds have a high failure rate.
When bureaucrats attempt to play businessowner, prospector or professional investor bad things start happening – it’s kryptonite for the economy. However, cronies like Texas Central aren’t a fan of limiting government’s power because they’d rather have a massive, lucrative multi-year project — even if it never works. They win, everybody else loses.
I’m reminded of that scene in the first Superman movie where he tells Lois Lane he stands for “Truth, justice, and the American way.” Lois, in her post-Watergate cynicism, tells him, “You’ll be fighting against every elected official in the country!”
It would be nice to have Superman protect us from criminals, but it might be more important to have him protect us against cronies and bureaucrats. We really need him to be more powerful than Texas Central’s locomotives.
Charles Sauer is a contributer to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor and for an academic think tank. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
