Eminent domain quote of the week: “I don’t like beets.”

Yesterday, Associated Press journalist Sandra Chereb quoted Nevada Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, as saying that he is not opposed to a bill that would strip mining companies and Nevada’s sugar beet industry of the power of eminent: “I don’t have any opposition to the bill,” he quipped. “I don’t like beets.”

SB86 sponsored by Nevada State Senator Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, seeks to repeal a law that dates back to a time when mining and sugar beets were two of the major industries in Nevada. Sugar beets have not been grown in the State since the 1960s.

From Chereb’s article:

Eminent domain should be reserved for promoting the greater community good and not the interests of private companies, [Sen.] Leslie said.

“This is not about the greater good but the private corporate interest,” she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Assemblyman Horne has sponsored a similar bill in the Assembly that would repeal the mining industry’s power of eminent domain. His bill does not include a provision striping the defunct sugar beet industry of condemnation power as in SB86. AP reporter Chereb writes that Horne testified on Monday in support of Senator Leslie’s bill, hence his comment – “I don’t like beets.” While Horne’s words may not be the most eloquent in support of property rights or in opposition to the use of eminent domain for private enterprise, his quote certainly is memorable.

Read the entire AP article here.

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