New movie a true-story thriller about speaking truth to power
WASHINGTON >> Coming soon to a cinema near you — you can make this happen; read on — is a bite-your-nails true-story thriller featuring heroes, villains and a history-making struggle over … the Constitution’s Takings Clause. Next Feb. 24, “Little Pink House” will win the Oscar for best picture if Hollywood’s political preening contains even a scintilla of sincerity about speaking truth to power.
In 1997, New London, Connecticut, was experiencing hard times. Its government decided that it wanted more revenues. A private entity, the New London Development Corp. (NLDC), wanted to entice the Pfizer pharmaceutical corporation, which was about to introduce a popular blue pill, to locate a research facility on land adjacent to a blue-collar residential neighborhood. The city empowered the NLDC to wield the awesome, potentially life-shattering power of eminent domain if, as happened, it failed to persuade all the homeowners to sell for an upscale private development to “complement” Pfizer’s facility. Some, led by Susette Kelo (played by Catherine Keener, two-time Oscar nominee), refused.
Kelo’s plight got the attention of the Institute for Justice (IJ), nonprofit libertarian litigators who prodded the third branch (the judiciary) to police the excesses of the other two. IJ lost, but won.
Kelo lost 4-3 in Connecticut’s Supreme Court and 5-4 in the U.S. Supreme Court, which accepted New London’s sophistical argument that virtually erased the Constitution’s circumscription of government’s eminent domain power. This used to be limited by the notably explicit Fifth Amendment, which says “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” (emphasis added). The Constitution’s framers intended the adjective “public” to do what the rest of the Bill of Rights does: Limit government’s power. Government could take private property only for the purpose of creating things — roads, bridges, tunnels, public buildings — directly owned by government or primarily used by the general public.
To seize Kelo’s pink house, New London argued that “public use” is synonymous with “public benefit,” and that the public would benefit from Pfizer paying more taxes than would Kelo and her neighbors. During oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia distilled New London’s argument: “You can take from A to give to B if B pays more taxes.” In a dissent joined by William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas and Scalia, Sandra Day O’Connor warned that the decision’s consequences “will not be random”: Factions whose affluence makes them desirable taxpayers and whose political influence makes them politically potent will join governments in seizing the property of low-income citizens who are not as lucrative for local governments.
By getting the U.S. Supreme Court’s attention, and eliciting strong dissents that highlight the horribleness of the majority’s decision, Kelo and IJ ignited national revulsion that has produced new state limitations on eminent domain, limitations that re-establish the framers’ intentions.
The movie just debuted in New London, where government economic planning ended predictably badly: Pfizer came, exhausted its subsidies, then departed, leaving a vacant lot where the pink house once stood. View the trailer (iam.ij.org/ LPHtrailer) and consult watch.LittlePinkHouseMovie.com to learn about showings elsewhere. Organizations or groups of about 70 persons can go to TUGG.com to book a theater and receive help promoting the showing. People who send their email addresses to LittlePinkArmy.com will be contacted and helped through this process. This bypasses Hollywood’s normal distribution procedures, but the movie industry might benefit from it.
Does Hollywood want to reverse the four-year ratings decline of the Academy Awards telecast? Imagine the viewership for a contest of David (“Little Pink House”) against a gaggle of Goliaths (big-budget best-picture nominees).