Election 2012 / Virginia Constitution: Eminent Domain Amendment, Question 1
The Virginia Eminent Domain Amendment, Question 1 is on the November 6, 2012 ballot in the state of Virginia as a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment.
The measure would prohibit eminent domain from being used for private enterprise, job creation, tax revenue generation or economic development, thereby restricting it to only being invoked to take private land for public use. Specifically, it would update a 2007 law which states that private property can be taken only when the public interest dominates the private gain. It is sponsored by Delegate Rob Bell.
The official ballot text reads as follows:
Shall Section 11 of Article I (Bill of Rights) of the Constitution of Virginia be amended (i) to require that eminent domain only be exercised where the property taken or damaged is for public use and, except for utilities or the elimination of a public nuisance, not where the primary use is for private gain, private benefit, private enterprise, increasing jobs, increasing tax revenue, or economic development; (ii) to define what is included in just compensation for such taking or damaging of property; and (iii) to prohibit the taking or damaging of more private property than is necessary for the public use?
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Tags: amendement, constitutional amendment, eminent domain, November 2012, private property 
My first reaction is to be against this simply because Ken Cuccinelli and Bob McDonnell are for it. The Farm Bureau makes a good argument but then that same bureau is suing the EPA over the regulation of farm run off into the bay–one of our greatest natural resources that has been terribly polluted by farm run off. The whole idea about lost revenues and profits bothers me also. The news articles cited seem to line up against this. I am inclined to do so at this time since constitutional amendments are very hard, if not impossible, to rescind once they are enacted.