If there’s a wrong way to run a state, California has figured it out. It is a train wreck of a progressive laboratory. And while Dems on the right coast idolize these failures and package them as progress, they are anything but.
One of the “laws” left-coast lefty-legislators imposed requires business owners to turn over space on their property to unions for several hours a day, so many days a year. A right to organize and coordinate (potentially against the interests of the employer) in their own “house.”
The US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has just declared that a 5th amendment taking.
Today’s Supreme Court decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid is an important victory for private property owners. It establishes that even a temporary physical invasion or occupation of property authorized by the government qualifies as a taking requiring payment of “just compensation” under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Cedar Point involves a challenge to a California law requiring agricultural growers to give union organizers access to their property for three hours per day, 120 days per year.
Unions of all sorts have long negotiated for this sort of leverage. A means to organize union members on “company property” because that’s where you’ll find all the workers.
“[t]he right to exclude is ‘universally held to be a fundamental element of the property right'”
Unions can still work out those deals with management, but after Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, a state cannot demand it without compensating them financially for the taking.
Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid is a major victory for constitutional property rights. It ensures that, at least in most cases, the government cannot invade owners’ land — or authorize others to do so — without paying “just compensation,” as required by the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.
This is not to say California will not raise more taxes or find some other way to help their union friends. Make taxpayers pay for the time or stonewall with some half-assed play at compliance. I’d expect they will, but it is still a win for property rights.
But not as big a win as it could.
The ruling does not limit “most health and safety inspections, and enforcement of regulations that bar owners from violating common law rights of others.”
I suppose that’s a fair exception in most cases but not so much after a year of COVID tyranny. Invasions of property established under an emergency order to prevent you from “infecting others” appear unaffected by this ruling.
