George Will Urges Supreme Court to Consider Gambling Takings Case
Columnist George Will is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to restore some bite to the takings clause by accepting an Illinois case on the transfer of money from riverboat casinos to horse-racing tracks.
The levy by the Illinois legislature will take more than $100 million from the state’s four most profitable casinos and transfer it to horse-racing interests that made large campaign contributions to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Will writes in the Washington Post. The levy ends in 2011.
The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the transfer in a decision that said the takings clause applies to land, tangible property and intellectual property—but not to money, Will writes. He disagrees with that reasoning.
“What is to prevent legislators from taking revenue from Wal-Mart and giving it to local retailers?” he writes. “Or from chain drugstores to local pharmacies? Not the tattered remnant of the Constitution’s takings clause.”
Will says the court could take the case to make clear that the takings clause applies to cash and to overrule its controversial 2005 decision, Kelo v. City of New London. Kelo held that a city could use eminent domain to buy land for development by private interests. The court said economic development was sufficient public purpose to satisfy the takings clause. (The ABA Journal covers the effects of the decision in the April story, “Where’s the Revolution?”)
