Governor Barbour explained in a statement that “I am vetoing House Bill 803 because it would do more damage to job creation and economic development than any government action since Mississippi rightfully began trying to balance agriculture with industry in 1935.” He continued, “If House Bill 803 were to become law, Mississippi would enact a prohibition against the use of eminent domain for job creation or economic development projects under MEIA [the state Major Economic Impact Act]. Every company looking to site a new facility or significantly add to an existing facility here will know about this prohibition. And if they didn’t, every state competing against Mississippi would tell them over and over about the prohibition; because every other state knows that the use of eminent domain is often required to provide good title to the site for the facility or the critical infrastructure needed to serve this job-creating project. As a reminder, eminent domain was used to allow Nissan, Toyota, ATK, PACCAR, Stennis Space Center and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to exist in Mississippi. Eminent domain would likely be needed to secure title to many other MEIA economic development sites in the future, and experienced site selectors, whether corporate or under contract, know it.”
He also noted that Mississippi’s eminent domain laws provide more protections to property owners than do the Connecticut laws that permitted New London’s condemnation action in the Kelo case. Specifically, under the state Major Economic Impact Act, economic development takings have to be approved by the affected local governments, the Mississippi Development Authority, both houses of the legislature, and the Governor. The Governor indicated that he would pass legislation that extended this structure to all economic development takings, and he said that he will call a special session to evaluate this type of legislation.
The governor also asked the legislature to consider adding hospitals, housing authorities, schools and public improvement districts to the list of condemnations exempted from the bill. And he questioned whether the exemptions for nuisance takings and condemnations of property unfit for human habitation would be wise, given that a local government engaging in urban renewal activities would no longer be able to enroll the help of private redevelopers. “what could it do with the property it takes? Let it sit vacant? Take it off the tax rolls forever? Give it to Jackson State [University]?”
Special thanks to Amy Lavine, Esq. of the Government Law Center of Albany Law School for providing this abstract.
