◼ Can constitutional rights be destroyed by desuetude? - Pacific Legal Foundation
Earlier this month, the Second Circuit rejected a Takings Clause challenge to a New York statute that, by increasing the state’s homestead exemption, destroyed a lien holder’s property interest. Rather than resolving what sort of property interest the lien was or what test applied to the taking, the Second Circuit concluded that, regardless of the interest or its level of protection, the claim has to fail because the homestead exemption is a “background principle” that inheres in all titles....
...This ruling threatens to have a significant impact on property owners. As Prof. John Echevarria notes on his Takings Litigation blog, states have been closely regulating property use through zoning regulations for a century. If zoning itself could become a background principle, the Constitution’s protections against regulatory takings would largely evaporate.
