Manchester, N.H.
The February 7 GOP presidential debate was a good one for Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. With three days until the New Hampshire primary, where Trump has a commanding lead in the polls, his rivals spent most of the night fighting each other.
The main story in the press coming out of the debate is that Marco Rubio, currently in second place in New Hampshire polls, had a disastrous night because he repeated the same criticism of Barack Obama four times. Rubio had thoughtful and substantive answers on topics like ISIS, religious liberty, and the right to life. But Chris Christie’s mockery of Rubio’s repetitive remarks about Obama was the highlight of the night in the media.
That’s good news for Trump. But he did have one very bad moment when he and Jeb Bush sparred over eminent domain. “Eminent domain is an absolute necessity for a country, for our country. Without it, you wouldn’t have roads, you wouldn’t have hospitals, you wouldn’t have anything,” Trump said.
But as Bush quickly pointed out, there’s a difference between using eminent domain for public purpose and Trump’s position that government should be able to seize private property and transfer it to private corporations in order to build factories or casinos.
“What Donald Trump did was use eminent domain to try to take the property of an elderly woman on the strip in Atlantic City. That is not public purpose, that is downright wrong,” Bush said.
“The woman ultimately didn’t want to do that. I walked away,” Trump replied.
“That is not true,” Bush said. “And the simple fact is to turn this into a limousine parking lot for his casinos is a not public use.”
Bush was right, and he didn’t back down. Trump had actually lost the case in court. For the first time in any of the GOP debates this election cycle, Bush got the better of Trump in an exchange on both substance and style.
Polls have shown that Trump’s position on eminent domain is deeply unpopular among Republicans: 60 percent of Iowa Republican caucusgoers said Trump’s stance bothered them.
The issue also has significant implications for the Supreme Court. Eminent domain was the subject of a controversial 5-4 Supreme Court decision in which liberal justices took a position in line with Trump’s expansive view, while conservatives dissented and defended private property rights. A Supreme Court justice who shares Trump’s view on this issue would likely be a liberal activist on issues like abortion, national security, immigration, the First Amendment, and the death penalty.
In the spin room after the debate, I asked Trump what he would do as president if he knew that a judge thought his expansive view of eminent domain was unconstitutional. Would Trump be willing to appoint such a judge to the Supreme Court?
“You wouldn’t have a bridge, you wouldn’t have a road, you wouldn’t have a highway without eminent domain,” Trump replied, not answering the question.
But what if a judge disagreed with Trump’s view that eminent domain may be used to build factories and casinos?
“You take a small piece of property in a town that’s in big trouble, and you do it with eminent domain and you build a 7,000-person factory where you’re going to produce jobs. You’re going to have to make a decision,” he replied.
Trump then moved down the press line after ducking the question a second time.
For conservatives who are very concerned that Trump would appoint liberal activists to the Supreme Court, his refusal to answer the question won’t be reassuring.
