Saturday, July 02, 2005

Oh, and another thing . . .

A letter in Saturday's (July 2nd) StarTribune:

In her June 30 column, "Sen. Coleman: What Constitution says must prevail," Katherine Kersten writes that "judges overstep their bounds unless they base decisions on the actual words of the Constitution or the law in question."

Yet just a few sentences later she writes, "in evaluating a city government's decision to condemn property, a good judge would permit such a 'taking' only for the purpose stated in the Constitution: a 'public use,' such as roads."

Trouble is, the Constitution doesn't say "roads." It merely says "public use" and provides no further definition.

Kersten interprets "public use' to mean roads and not a municipality's economic development.

In other words, she's made a judgment call - exactly what judges must do all the time. In doing so, she proves the limitations of the "actual words" principle she advocates.

David Brauer, Minneapolis

Spottie and others have written about this wooly-headed column before, but Mr. Brauer provides another example of the treasure trove of Kersten's incoherence. Come to think of it, Kersten is kind of wooly-headed!

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