I think they’re really fronts for Ratner.

And of course he has. What’s the problem with DDDB’s legal team? Why, it’s the same problem the DDDB members have: THEY DON’T BELIEVE IN RIGHTS.

The only way to fight eminent domain is to claim that the facts involved in the taking enjoy a higher level of scrutiny than “minimum scrutiny.” But DDDB and its lawyers CONSISTENTLY REFUSE TO ARGUE THAT HOUSING ENJOYS A LEVEL OF SCRUTINY HIGHER THAN MINIMUM SCRUTINY.

There is plenty of room to argue that minimum scrutiny (imposed by the Supreme Court in West Coast Hotel, and I am sure there is an analogous state law provision) is grounded on “maintenance” of important facts, since “maintenance” is used in both West Coast and even U.S. v. Carolene Products (which supposedly stands for the proposition that since housing is a “social” fact, you can’t have a higher level of scrutiny for it).

Indeed, the work Ratner has done shows that he HIMSELF believes housing is an “important” fact, using the West Virginia v. Barnette test for raising the level of scrutiny for a fact:

Is it

1. a fact of human experience
2. which history demonstrates
3. is not affected by attempts to affect it.

In short, DDDB and its lawyers should be arguing that the law maintains important facts, that housing is an important fact, and that the project does not maintain housing.

But they simply refuse to do it. They insist on playing by the out-of-date view of minimum scrutiny, and arguing that THEIR discretion is better than the government’s discretion. That is necessarily a losing argument, and so of course they have lost case.

Just read my book, The Eminent Domain Revolt.

DDDB and its lawyers are cowards and basically just as much police state flunkeys as Ratner. This is an argument between two groups of police state rats. It’s about power, not about rights, so who cares if DDDB loses?

This ridiculous scum doesn’t realize that the scrutiny regime is OVER and that we have entered into the maintenance regime. If their lawyers weren’t so ignorant of Constitutional developments, they would have won this case long ago.

Instead, all the little rats in the Atlantic Yards “footprint” will be moved out.

Who will mourn when one pack of police state rats is moved out to make way for another?

Not me.