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SCOTUSblog: Opinion analysis: Is the New Deal in new trouble? (Horne v. Dept. of Agriculture)
I think this is worth reading in it's entirety. It's an interesting case, and there are basically four different opinions in the same case. One part went 8-1, the other 5-3, and one justice dissented on the entire thing (Sotomayor).
One of the more durable legacies of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s was the idea that the farm economy can be bolstered by paying growers to keep some of their crop off the market, or paying them not to grow some of it at all. One of those programs ran into a high constitutional fence on Monday, raising at least some question about how long the idea can continue unchanged.
Depending on how farmers, and their lawyers, interpret the new decision in Horne v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, it could pose a threat to a wide range of government subsidy programs that seek to keep crop prices up by keeping supply down. That formula has been used since 1949 for the California raisin industry under a 1937 farm law, but its future is in doubt. What happens to other farm regulatory programs will have to await further development.
<snip>
Although eight of the nine Justices agreed that the raisin program does involve a form of “taking” private property for public use, three of those eight split off from the others on the question of whether the amount the growers were now due for the takeover of their raisins could be settled now.
The three partially dissenting Justices wanted the case sent back to lower courts to weigh whether the raisin-growing family that challenged the program was entitled to any compensation, because they may have benefited financially from the better prices that raisins supposedly got because of the market effects of the government set-aside regime.
<snip>
The ninth Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, arguing that the raisin growers were not deprived of all of their ownership interests in the raisins that they had to hand over, and thus there was no “taking.” Sotomayor disputed the majority’s claim that it was not threatening other forms of agricultural subsidy programs, ones that do not have the takeover of full control of the set-aside part of the crop.
<snip>
http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/opinion-analysis-is-the-new-deal-in-new-trouble
Depending on how farmers, and their lawyers, interpret the new decision in Horne v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, it could pose a threat to a wide range of government subsidy programs that seek to keep crop prices up by keeping supply down. That formula has been used since 1949 for the California raisin industry under a 1937 farm law, but its future is in doubt. What happens to other farm regulatory programs will have to await further development.
<snip>
Although eight of the nine Justices agreed that the raisin program does involve a form of “taking” private property for public use, three of those eight split off from the others on the question of whether the amount the growers were now due for the takeover of their raisins could be settled now.
The three partially dissenting Justices wanted the case sent back to lower courts to weigh whether the raisin-growing family that challenged the program was entitled to any compensation, because they may have benefited financially from the better prices that raisins supposedly got because of the market effects of the government set-aside regime.
<snip>
The ninth Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, arguing that the raisin growers were not deprived of all of their ownership interests in the raisins that they had to hand over, and thus there was no “taking.” Sotomayor disputed the majority’s claim that it was not threatening other forms of agricultural subsidy programs, ones that do not have the takeover of full control of the set-aside part of the crop.
<snip>
http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/opinion-analysis-is-the-new-deal-in-new-trouble