Company Purchases Border Land And Hires Eminent Domain Lawyer to Thwart Wall Construction
In the latest MAGA subversion ploy from Trump detractors, a party games product maker has purchased border land in an effort to stop border wall construction. The maker of Cards Against Humanity, a game that involves matching cards with humorously offensive phrases, is doing its best to match ideologies with the Democrats. It’s a perfect fit.
While everyone should recognize the PR stunt behind this, the company appears to be making an ideological stand. Instead of simply floating the idea, it’s gone ahead and purchased the land itself and hired an eminent domain specialist to thwart would-be land grabbers.
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“We’ve purchased a plot of vacant land on the border and retained a law firm specializing in eminent domain to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for the wall to get built,” company officials said. (Source: “Cards Against Humanity buys area of US border to prevent Trump building his wall,” Independent, November 15, 2017.)
If there were any doubts about the ideological aspects to the ploy, the Cards Against Humanity website puts those to bed. The website says, “Donald Trump is a preposterous golem who is afraid of Mexicans,” while adding that it intends to save the country from “injustice, lies, racism, the whole enchilada.” (Source: “Cards Against Humanity buys US border land to ‘save America’,” The Scotsman, November 15, 2017.)
As you may recall, eminent domain became a major campaign issue during the 2016 presidential race. Primary challengers grilled Trump for attempting to pressure Vera Coking into selling her Atlantic City boarding house in order to erect a casino. When Coking refused to sell, the state tried (unsuccessfully) to condemn her property using eminent domain. Donald Trump was forced to defend this contentious legal practice. (Source: “Jeb Bush slams Donald Trump for trying to “take property from an elderly woman”,” CBS News, February 6, 2016.)
It looks like Cards Against Humanity is looking to follow the Vera Coking playbook.
How Long Do Eminent Domain Cases Generally Take?
If the border is to move forward, the federal government will require eminent domain to seize control of vast tracts of private land along the U.S.-Mexico border. That is, if Trump can convince Congress to fund wall construction, above the $1.6-billion initial outlay for 2018.
The timeline for eminent domain cases can vary. A multi-step process is followed, which can drag out if each stage is contested along the way. In California, there are at least seven distinct steps involved, from agency inspection to appraisal to jury trial if mediation cannot be negotiated. Start to finish, the process could take several years if the landowner is committed to stonewalling the process. That takes time and money.
Given the consortium opposition to the wall, the “money” part shouldn’t an issue. It seems likely Cards Against Humanity could raise enough money to keep its stonewalling tactics alive, if need be. It would also provide a perpetual source of notoriety for the company, which would become heroes to the left (half the nation).
As they say, there’s no such thing as bad press.
