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The Little Pink House and Its Enemies February 5, 2009 Liberty-lovers have a difficult time finding dogs to back in today’s public-policy fights. Raise taxes, or print money? This ineffective reform of government schools, or that ineffective reform of government schools? A corporate-welfare giveaway, or a perk for Big Labor? It’s not often that libertarians are presented with a struggle that pits noble freedom-fighters against a gang of sleazy, selfish, spiteful bullies. Jeff Benedict’s Little Pink House describes one such battle -- and it took place in Connecticut. Benedict’s 396-page tome, just released by Grand Central Publishing, chronicles the Fort Trumbull neighborhood’s struggle against the New London Development Corporation (NLDC). It’s a straightforward narrative that devotes little attention to constitutional and economic issues. Benedict sticks to the personal stories of the participants. Many will find his approach superficial. But Little Pink House reminds readers that beneath the demonstrations, hearings, lawsuits, and press coverage, lives are impacted -- and often destroyed -- by public-sector “visionaries.” Susette Kelo’s home, a two-bedroom with a fabulous view of New London Harbor she bought in 1997, had the unfortunate fate of being located in the heart of one of Connecticut’s most ambitious “redevelopment” schemes. Launched by future federal jailbirds John Rowland and Peter Ellef, the project was a “partnership” with drug manufacturer Pfizer: The company would build its new research and development headquarters in the city, in exchange for the state ponying up tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to “facilitate” the development of a hotel, conference center, health club, and housing units. (Despite the company’s denials, Pfizer was to be the primary beneficiary of the new facilities.) The NLDC, a dormant entity the Rowland administration revived to oversee the development, wasn’t going to let the fact that hundreds of privately owned properties already existed at Fort Trumbull stand in the way. It bought off the owners willing to leave, and condemned holdouts’ land under the state’s overly broad eminent-domain law. Millions of Americans know the rest -- Kelo v. City of New London eventually went before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2005, five justices sided with the corporacrats, and ruled it was constitutionally permissible to seize private property if it was to be given to someone or something that could generate more tax revenue. The most striking thing about Benedict’s story is the contrast between the victims and perpetrators of the Great Fort Trumbull Land Grab. The holdouts, he notes, didn’t sip Merlot and listen to NPR: “They were largely a lunch-pail group -- a carpenter, an auto mechanic, a nurse, a self-employed businessman, and some senior citizens hoping to spend their final days in the homes they had occupied for decades. Most of them had dirt under their nails at the end of the workday.” Even the group’s lead attorney, the Institute for Justice’s Scott Bullock, “didn’t come from a high-powered background” and was “the first in his family to graduate from college.” The NLDC and its enablers were from a very different world -- the axis of politicians, developers, corporate executives, lawyers, and academics who have too much time on their hands, and too little respect for folks who aren’t impressed by utopian plans. Benedict doesn’t pull punches with these figures, because he doesn’t throw any. Too bad. The Kelo fight supplied quite a rouge’s gallery: Claire Gaudiani, the diminutive megalomaniac picked by the Rowland administration to head the NLDC (in 2000, she would be ousted as president of Connecticut College for incompetence); David Goebel, the deeply dishonest and thoroughly thuggish retired naval officer who gleefully served as the NLDC’s hatchet man; Wesley Horton, the loathsome lawyer who, in defending the NLDC before the U.S. Supreme Court, told justices that it “would be okay” if government seized a Motel 6 in order to build a Ritz-Carlton; and editorial writers at New London’s daily, The Day, who in Bullock’s words, penned “a series of hand-wringing, predictable editorials that defended those in power who sought to take their neighbors’ homes.” “Ordinary people,” observed writer Justin Raimondo, “have no place in the grand designs of ideologues … . Their place is that of extras in mob scenes, as backdrop for the dramas enacted by gods and heroes, the rulers and self-appointed vanguard parties charged with enforcing and implementing the grand blueprint.” Little Pink House provides poignant profiles of the people who weren’t willing to be extras in the NLDC’s doomed-to-fail blockbuster. They lost their battle, but by waging it, offered inspiration to the dwindling number of citizens who still believe economic liberty trumps government greed. D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com. # # # # #
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