by Jeremy Hopkins, Esquire
Waldo & Lyles Attorneys

It has been more than 100 years since the Virginia General Assembly took a hard look at property rights guarantees in the state constitution. As our lawmakers begin a historic debate about how and whether to safeguard those constitutional protections, it is apparent already that the arguments against property rights protections have a distinct deja vu quality.

In 1902, those who opposed efforts to give Virginians more security in their homes, farms and businesses against eminent domain abuses made the same kind of doom-and-gloom predictions that are heard by opponents today. Opponents argued that the amendment would doom Virginia as an economic backwater, discourage out-of-state investment, drown the courts in lawsuits and bind Virginians to their horses and wagons and to their steep hills and valleys because rights of way would become prohibitively expensive.

They claimed increased protection for property rights would cause progress to come to a screeching halt. Despite this parade of horrors, Virginians amended their constitution in 1902 to correct the rampant property rights abuses of that time.