Melvin Watt: “I yield myself 2 minutes. This is the third or fourth time that somebody has come to the floor and talked about it…”

“I yield myself 2 minutes. This is the third or fourth time that somebody has come to the floor and talked about it taking 9\1/2\ years to get through the process. So let me be clear on how this 9\1/2\ year figure was derived. It was also the result of a study done by the National Association of Home Builders. The problem is that in arriving at the study, they used only 14 Federal appellate court cases over a 9-year period, the period from 1990 to 1998. And, of course, if we take those 14 cases, anything can happen in a small number of cases, but that does not mean that we have got a massive problem. The bulk of the cases were being resolved before local zoning and planning commissions without any litigation, but those cases were just disregarded. The study ignored hundreds of takings cases litigated in State court each year, which comprised the overwhelming bulk of takings lawsuits. In those cases the States were giving fair and adequate remedies to the people who were coming into the State courts, which is exactly the way the process is supposed to work. So, ironically, we are in here talking about let us put everything in Federal Court, when the 14 cases that they used to come up with this 9\1/2\ year figure are the ones that ended up in Federal Court. It was the State court and the local zoning boards that were making quick, efficient decisions.…”