Elections « Disasters, Property, and Politics

As I finish up the week and was checking through the news, I stumbled on this interview with Chris Koster, Missouri’s current Attorney General. Brownfield Ag News interviewed him because he’s running for governor. He discusses several issues that are of interest to DPP and our readers, including the Waters of the US litigation, other litigation involving regulatory issues, infrastructure issues, and agricultural bills pending in the state legislature. I’m posting this less because of the election and more because in his discussion he gives some good updates various matters. Here’s the link — scroll down to find the recording of the interview, which is about 30 minutes in length.

I tried to find something similar from Eric Greitens, who is also running for governor. Apparently, Brownfield Ag News asked him for an interview and his campaign declined to do something similar. I haven’t yet found any discussion as substantive and wide-ranging as this, but if a reader is aware of one (other than material on his campaign site), please feel free to send me the link. After I review it, I’ll be happy to post it.

I wrote a short piece for the Monkey Cage — a political science blog hosted by the Washington Post — based on my recent article on eminent domain (which I also blurbed here at DPP). The very short version is: if Donald Trump is elected president and seeks to make good on his promise to build a wall across America’s southern border, he would have to use the government’s power of eminent domain to take thousands of properties from individuals and small businesses–mostly in Texas. My research indicates that eminent domain is unpopular in the best of circumstances, but is really unpopular when the takings are for non-traditional “broad” uses that the public would not actually use. As a result, I argue that the wall would become really unpopular very quickly if Trump (or anyone else, for that matter) tries to actually build such a wall.

See the full piece here.

Editor’s Note: And, if you’re curious about hearing Trump’s perspective on eminent domain, in his own words, here’s an interesting YouTube video for you to view.