Donald Trump really did try to take an elderly widow's house for a limousine parking lot
By Timothy B. Leetim@vox.com Feb 7, 2016, 1:40pm EST
One of the testiest exchanges in last night's Republican presidential debate came when Jeb Bush accused Donald Trump of trying to take the home of an elderly woman to make room for a limousine parking lot in Atlantic City.
Trump denied that he'd taken the property, but he defended the use of the legal power known as eminent domain to take property. "Eminent domain is an absolute necessity for a country," he said. "Without it, you wouldn't have roads, you wouldn't have hospitals, you wouldn't have anything."
Bush is right about this. Trump really did try to take an elderly woman's home in the 1990s to make more room to park limousines next door to his casino in Atlantic City — though the woman ultimately won in court. And while it's sometimes necessary for government to take private property for a road or post office, the abuse of eminent domain for purely private purposes was — and still is — a serious problem.
When the government uses eminent domain to take property, the US Constitution requires that it be for "public use." Traditionally, this was interpreted to mean a government-run facility, or at least a regulated public utility like a railroad. However, since the 1950s, the courts have allowed takings if they serve a "public purpose" — and they have given local governments a lot of discretion to decide what constitutes a public purpose.
