From the Herald News:
On Election Day, residents in 12 states were asked to vote on a ballot question on local government’s use of eminent domain to seize private property.
Voters in 10 of those states approved eminent domain initiatives by overwhelming margins.
There is widespread interest in the property rights issue, because of ongoing cases in Lodi, Long Branch and elsewhere within the state. Although 34 states so far have approved referendums limiting the reach of eminent domain, New Jersey is not one of them.
The reason, according to both activists and officials, is that the state is already addressing the property rights issue. In order to have an eminent domain question on the ballot, state lawmakers would have had to adopt a resolution or 10 percent of voters would have to petition for the measure.
However, quietly, yet diligently, residents and legislators alike have worked toward eminent domain reform in the hope of protecting residents from government abuse of the land-claiming law in counter to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year.
But just as entrenched is the borough of Lodi, locked in a protracted eminent domain legal joust with 250 trailer park residents on two sites along heavily traveled Route 46, land considered prime for commercial and residential redevelopment.