Real Estate & Property Law

More Amicus Briefs in SCOTUS Ceded Lands Case

By Robert Thomas (inversecondemnation.com)

The brief of the Commissioner of Public Lands for the State of New Mexico is posted here.  The brief of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence is posted here.

The New Mexico brief explains:

Because the express trust created under the Hawaii Admission Act was based on principles established in the New Mexico and Arizona Enabling Acts, the Commissioner is well situated to provide background and analysis regarding the federal law issues raised by the Hawaii Supreme Court?s unprecedented injunction barring state alienation of lands held in a similar federal law trust.

Brief at 2-3. The Center's brief argues:

This case raises the question of whether Congress can impose limits on the sovereign powers of states?long after the states have been admitted into the union. As interpreted by the Hawaii Supreme Court, the resolution adopted by Congress achieved that limit on state power. The state court acted in what it saw as the best interest of the descendants of native Hawaiians who still protest a century-old injustice.

Congress may well have the power to resolve injustices from the distant past by opening up the federal treasury or issuing apologies. It does not, however, have the power to alter the frame of government set down in the Constitution. The federal government remains one of few and defined powers, and those powers do not include the authority to prohibit states from alienating state owned property.

Brief at 2.

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).