by Timothy Sandefur
Maggie Neff of the Jackson (Miss.) Free Press has an excellent comment on the decision by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to veto that state's eminent domain reform bill. She concludes,
Corporations need to make up their minds, as do the conservatives who so strongly oppose government regulation. The idea of free enterprise—which is so many anti-regulation folks’ argument against bailouts and stimulus plans—exists independently of government involvement. This extends to the exercise of eminent domain for what essentially boils down to private, corporate use. You can’t have it both ways. It seems that Barbour and other conservatives only favor government involvement when it benefits them. And that’s not fair to the people of Mississippi, or anywhere else, for that matter.
