Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have been highlighting their competing views regarding the controversial policy of eminent domain.
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Cruz attacked Trump for supporting eminent domain.
Cruz stated, “Donald Trump has said he thinks eminent domain is fantastic, and he supports using government power to seize private people's homes, to give them to giant corporations to say hypothetically build a casino.”
Cruz said Trump is “entitled to have that view,” however Cruz stated he believes “we have an obligation to protect the rights of Americans, and private property is essential to the rights of Americans."
In a tweet on Friday morning, Trump fired back at Cruz by alleging that without eminent domain, there wouldn’t be “roads, highways, airports, schools or even pipelines”:
Cruz responded to Trump by releasing an advertisement decrying eminent domain as a “fancy term for politicians seizing private property to enrich the fat cats who bankroll them”:
In addition to using eminent domain for “roads, highways, airports, schools or even pipelines,” Trump has long supported the use of eminent domain for private development.
Trump has praised the Supreme Court Kelo v. City of New London decision, in which the Supreme Court decided that eminent domain could be used to transfer property from one private owner to another as part of an economic development plan.
Trump himself has attempted to use eminent domain for personal use. During the 1990s, Trump tried to evict an elderly widow from her home in order to build a limousine parking lot.