Daniel Sutter: Squatters and property rights
Recent news stories detail incidents of squatting, or illegal occupation of a home. These rights violations plausibly reflect public discourse demonizing landlords, promoting rent control, and even proposing the abolition of rent. I have no statistics on squatting and so will not call this a crisis. The rights violations are problematic regardless of the proportion of properties impacted. The prevalence of news stories suggests that squatting is frequent enough to be on editors’ radar. Numerous factors lead to squatting. Sometimes tenants stay after a lease expires, or they stop paying rent. Some people break into unoccupied houses. The most problematic cases arise when the squatter claims to have a lease. Sometimes, the squatter has been swindled by someone posing as the listing agent. Conflicting legal claims typically result in the police waiting for a court order to evict the squatter. Legal resolution can take six to twelve months. Squatters also sometimes do considerable damage to a home. For homeowners, squatting can be financially ruinous. Sometimes homeowners returning from vacation find trespassers living in their homes. Often squatters take a vacant house. Homeowners who move for a new job may rent if they cannot immediately sell the home. Illegal squatting deprives the owner of the rental income while the mortgage and property taxes must still be paid. Property owners must pay for any damage the squatters cause and incur legal bills to secure eviction. Plus, they experience stress and anguish. Squatting, I think, reflects a deterioration of respect for property rights driven by government policy. The CDC imposed a nationwide eviction moratorium before being stopped by the Supreme Court. Dozens of cities have passed new rent control ordinances. The “Cancel the Rent” movement seeks to abolish rent entirely. When told that housing is a human right, people may feel justified living in someone else’s house. Squatting illustrates how people devise ways to benefit themselves within the legal rules. Suppose you know the following. The police will not evict squatters, given the uncertainty over lawful possession. Lease disputes go to courts with long delays. And squatting generally is a civil matter with little danger of criminal prosecution upon eviction. Here is a profitable strategy: manufacture a bogus lease to live rent-free for months (or years). We will hope in vain for people to not take advantage of others like this. Fortunately, fixing this problem is straightforward. As George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley observes, we quickly determine ownership of automobiles based on registration and identification. The police “would not allow the person to drive off and tell the owner to work it out in court.” As Professor Turley notes, the authorities simply need to act promptly to identify bogus leases. While squatting may not be a criminal offense, trespass, forgery, and fraud are crimes. District attorneys who ignore property crimes encourage squatting. A failure to control squatting will prove highly costly. Many houses for sale or rent are vacant and vulnerable to illegal occupation. Losses from squatting will reduce market value, which in turn will reduce building. Squatting poses a similar threat to the market as rent control. I suspect most communities will control squatting. Many news stories are from states like Florida, Maryland, and Texas, where property taxes largely fund local governments. Widespread squatting would degrade property values and reduce property tax revenue. Before police or district attorneys get laid off, I suspect they will start evicting squatters. Economic ignorance may contribute to this policy negligence. Some progressives believe that rental housing contributes to unaffordability; if not allowed to rent, owners would accept lower sales prices. But the freedom to rent makes people willing to pay more for homes, increasing home building. Government limits on construction largely drive housing unaffordability. The victims of squatting are law-abiding citizens. The protection of property rights is a fundamental task of government. Failure to control squatting reflects a moral failure of government, one imposing extreme financial and emotional tolls on the victims. Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
Joe Guzzardi: DOJ May Intervene in Florida, Texas Transport Plans
Hillary Clinton, Yale Law School ’73, said on MSNBC that sending 50 illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard was “literally human trafficking” by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Harvard Law School, ‘05. The MSNBC co-host, Joe Scarborough, University of Florida School of Law ‘90, accused DeSantis of using innocent people as political pawns. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Harvard Law School ‘95, suggested that DeSantis and fellow Texan Gov. Greg Abbott, Vanderbilt University Law School, ’84, should send more migrants to blue cities and states. Cruz, pointing to the millions of illegal immigrants that the administration has admitted, bussed, and flown around the nation, called President Joe Biden, Syracuse University School of Law ’68 and former Senate Judiciary Chair, “the biggest human trafficker on the face of the planet.” Biden demanded that the governors stop their “un-American” political stunts. Clinton, Scarborough, and Biden have support from like-minded lawyers. Professors from Notre Dame, Georgetown, and other universities, along with civil rights advocates, came down hard on DeSantis and Abbott. The harshest criticism came from Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who requested that the Department of Justice open an investigation into the Martha’s Vineyard flights on charges that the migrants were “kidnapped.” Move along. Nothing to see here; just angry lawyers going after each other, hammer and tongs. The voting public, however, is grappling with a contradiction. If the Biden administration can order Customs and Border Patrol to put thousands of aliens on buses and planes to send them throughout the interior of the United States, then the same flexibility should apply to the governors, assuming, of course, that the migrants agree to be flown to Martha’s Vineyard or driven to Washington, D.C. or New York. Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor, provided his perspective. Turley wrote that to call transporting aliens kidnapping is “to take a flight from one’s legal senses.” On his blog, Turley stated that human trafficking, a legal term, is altogether different than moving humans in traffic. The governors’ actions aren’t an attempt to put humans, through fraud, coercion, or force, into peonage, involuntary servitude, or sex slavery. In conclusion, Turley wrote that many objections could be made to the governors’ transport programs, but not kidnapping and human trafficking. The tensions between the states and the cities are just beginning. DeSantis promised to fly more migrants to other sanctuary cities, but not necessarily Martha’s Vineyard. That way, DeSantis explained, the sanctuaries can “put their money where their mouth is.” A possible 2024 presidential candidate, DeSantis may sense that while some American voters support immigration, they object to Biden-style open borders. Political expediency is at play in Texas, too. Abbott is up for re-election in November, and he’s counting on removing illegal immigrants as integral to his victory. The border invasion is expensive. As part of its $4 billion Operation Lone Star program, Texas has installed more than 42 miles of concertina wire along its Southern border near Eagle Pass and Del Rio, two communities through which millions have passed. A potential roadblock – a boulder, really – may stand in the governors’ way. In a statement, the Boston nonprofit, Lawyers for Civil Rights, promised to investigate “the inhumane manner in which they [the Martha’s Vineyard migrants] were shipped across the country, to determine the responsible parties, whether state or federal criminal laws against human trafficking and kidnapping were violated, and what other legal remedies are available.” Even though no evidence exists that the migrants were treated inhumanely, and as Turley warned, trafficking and kidnapping are specious charges, LCR will press on. The legal advocates hope to gather pro bono attorneys, immigration experts, law enforcement, and social services providers. If that’s not enough, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco confirmed that the DOJ is reviewing inquiries like Newsom’s calling for an investigation. The DOJ’s involvement, inevitable in the Biden administration, especially if the governors escalate, would be the end of the line for the governors’ strategy to give sanctuary cities a tiny taste of their own medicine. Not a single voice among the many urged border enforcement. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
John Bolton critique of Donald Trump could define tell-all book battles
The government asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order to prevent the release of the book.
Fiery disagreements as Donald Trump impeachment hearing opens
The House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing quickly burst into partisan infighting Wednesday as Democrats charged that President Donald Trump must be removed from office for enlisting foreign interference in U.S. elections and Republicans angrily retorted there were no grounds for such drastic action. The panel responsible for drafting articles of impeachment convened as Trump’s team was fanning out across Capitol Hill. Vice President Mike Pence met behind closed doors with House Republicans, and Senate Republicans were to huddle with the White House counsel as GOP lawmakers stand with the president and Democrats charge headlong into what has become a one-party drive to impeach him. Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Democrat-New York, gaveled open the hearing saying, “’The facts before us are undisputed.” Nadler said Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president last July wasn’t the first time Trump sought a foreign power to influence American elections, after Russian interference in 2016, and if left unchecked he could do again in next year’s campaign. “We cannot wait for the election to address the present crisis,” Nadler said. “The president has shown us his pattern of conduct. If we do not act to hold him in check, now, President Trump will almost certainly try again to solicit interference in the election for his personal political gain.” Republicans protested the proceedings as unfair to the president, the dredging up of unfounded allegations as part of an effort to undo the 2016 election and remove Trump from office. “You just don’t like the guy,” said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the panel. He called the proceedings a “disgrace” and a “sham.” Several Republicans immediately objected to the process, interjecting procedural questions, and they planned to spend much of the session interrupting, delaying and questioning the rules. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats “haven’t made a decision” yet on whether there will be a vote on impeachment. She also meeting privately with the Democratic caucus. But a vote by Christmas appears increasingly likely with the release of a 300-page report by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee that found “serious misconduct” by the president. Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Democrat-California, told The Associated Press. “Americans need to understand that this president is putting his personal political interests above theirs. And that it’s endangering the country.” The Judiciary Committee heard Wednesday from legal experts, delving particularly into the issue of whether Trump’s actions stemming from the July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president rose to the constitutional level of “bribery” or “high crimes and misdemeanors” warranting impeachment. The report laid out evidence that the Democrats say shows Trump’s efforts to seek foreign intervention in the U.S. election and then obstruct the House’s investigation. Trump told reporters in London, where he was attending a NATO meeting, that he doubted many people would watch the live hearing “because it’s going to be boring.” Trump did phone in to the House GOP’s morning meeting with Pence to talk with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The California Republican said impeachment didn’t come up. “The unity has been very positive,” he said. New telephone call records released with the report deepen Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s known involvement in what House investigators called the “scheme” to use the president’s office for personal political gain by enlisting a foreign power, Ukraine, to investigate Democrats including Joe Biden, and intervene in the American election process. Trump told reporters he really doesn’t know why Giuliani was calling the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which was withholding $400 million in military aid to the ally confronting an aggressive Russia at its border. “’You have to ask him,” Trump said. “Sounds like something that’s not so complicated. … No big deal.” At the hearing, the three legal experts called by Democrats backed impeachment. Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor, said he considered it clear that the president’s conduct met the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors/” Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law School professor and former Obama administration Justice Department official, said the president’s action constituted an especially serious abuse of power “because it undermines democracy itself.” Republican witness Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said that the Democrats were bringing a “slipshod impeachment” case against the president, but he didn’t excuse the president’s behavior. “It is not wrong because President Trump is right,” according to Turley. “A case for impeachment could be made, but it cannot be made on this record,” he said. The political risks are high for all parties as the House presses only the fourth presidential impeachment inquiry in U.S. history. Based on two months of investigation sparked by a still-anonymous government whistleblower’s complaint, the Intelligence Committee’s Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report relies heavily on testimony from current and former U.S. officials who defied White House orders not to appear. The inquiry found that Trump “solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection,” Schiff wrote in the report’s preface. In doing so, the president “sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security,” the report said. When Congress began investigating, it added, Trump obstructed the investigation like no other president in history. Along with revelations from earlier testimony, the new phone records raised fresh questions about Giuliani’s interactions with the top Republican on the intelligence panel, Rep. Devin Nunes of California. Nunes declined to comment. Schiff said his panel would continue its probe. Republicans defended the president in a 123-page rebuttal claiming Trump never intended to pressure Ukraine when he asked for a “favor” — investigations of Democrats and Biden and his son. They say the military aid the White House was withholding was not being used as leverage, as Democrats claim — and besides, the $400 million was ultimately released, although only after a congressional outcry. For Republicans falling in line behind Trump, the inquiry is simply a “hoax.” Trump criticized the House for pushing forward with the proceedings while he was overseas, a breach of political decorum that traditionally leaves partisan
