MARVIN HORNE, a raisin grower in Fresno, California, is apparently the first family farmer to have his case accepted twice by America’s Supreme Court. Horne v US Department of Agriculture, which the justices re-heard on April 22nd (having previously ruled that a lower court could not duck hearing it) challenges a rule dating back to 1937. The rule requires raisin farmers to hand over a share of their crop to the government, which may or may not pay for it.
For nearly three decades, Mr Horne and his wife Laura complied. But just over a decade ago they rebelled and were hit with fines of nearly $700,000. In 2003-04 they would have had to fork over 30% of their crop and receive nothing in return. To them, this looked like theft.
The Fifth Amendment requires the government to provide “just compensation” when it takes “private property...for public use”. A lower court held that this only applies to such things as land and houses. Briefs from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, scoff that this argument “radically shrivels the right to own property” and “threatens to send [it] the way of the California Raisins [a group of singing dried fruit who are not as popular as they used to be]”.
The government maintains that the programme is intended to help raisin farmers by curbing supply and stabilising prices. The Supreme...
from The Economist: United States http://ift.tt/1DmShx3
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