Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [0]
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Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
First eBook Edition: January 2009
Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-446-54444-3
Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ON CAPITOL HILL
1: GIMME SHELTER
2: BIG AMBITIONS
3: THIS OLD HOUSE
4: WE NEED A VEHICLE
5: GETTING TO YES
6: POWER STEERING
7: WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
8: VIAGRA TIME
9: CAN YOU GUYS LOOK INTO THIS?
10: THE THINGS WE WANT
11: NATURAL-BORN LEADERS
12: BAD BLOOD FORMING
13: DO I HAVE A REASON TO BE CONCERNED?
14: PUSH BACK
15: OFFING TONY
16: I’M SOMEBODY
17: WEDGES
18: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
19: THE NEW NEW LONDON
20: THE TWEED CROWD
21: A HIP LITTLE CITY
22: RUBBER STAMP
23: HIGHER EDUCATION
24: BLURRED VISION
25: TIME IS NOT ON OUR SIDE
26: A FIGHT IN THE FORT
27: LINE IN THE SAND
28: PUT A PRETTY FACE ON IT
29: A DEMANDING BEAST
30: WOLVES AT THE DOOR
31: SOME DEVIOUS WAY
32: DISCOVERY
33: GO AHEAD, ASK YOUR QUESTION
34: LIFE IS SHORT
35: SPLITTING THE BABY
36: INTERESTED BYSTANDERS
37: GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?
38: A BEGINNING AND AN END
39: THE SUPREMES
40: FOR THE TAKINGS
41: HISS
42: BLINDSIDED
43: LIVING PROOF
44: LEAVE NO FOOTPRINTS
45: JUST PRAY
46: OPEN THE CHECKBOOK
47: THE ENDGAME
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SOURCE NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Also by Jeff Benedict
The Mormon Way of Doing Business: How Eight Western Boys Reached the Top of Corporate America
Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA’s Culture of Rape, Violence, and Crime
No Bone Unturned: The Adventures of a Top Smithsonian Forensic Scientist and the Legal Battle for America’s Oldest Skeletons
Without Reservation: How a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World’s Largest Casino
Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL (with co-author Don Yaeger)
Athletes and Acquaintance Rape
Public Heroes, Private Felons: Athletes and Crimes Against Women
To Josephine, my grandmother.
I wrote much of this book in the attic of her home. Many afternoons she trudged up the attic steps and quietly placed a grilled-cheese sandwich on my desk before saying, “You keep writing, kid.” She knew I didn’t have time to stop for lunch. My grandmother loved this story and couldn’t wait to read the finished product. Sadly, she never will. On January 15, 2008, Josephine died suddenly, shortly before I finished writing. If only I could have written faster.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Eminent domain is the government’s power to take private property for public use. Nobody particularly likes it. But occasionally it’s essential to make way for roads, schools, hospitals, and the like. And Americans accept this practice as long as deprived property owners receive due process and just compensation. Under the Fifth Amendment, that’s been the American way since the Framers drafted our Constitution.
But the Supreme Court changed the rules in 2005 when it decided Kelo v. City of New London. Now local and state governments can take private property from an individual and transfer it to a private developer in hopes of generating more tax revenue or creating jobs. The Kelo decision equated these public benefits with public uses.
Under this interpretation, there’s no telling where the government’s power to take private property ends. “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in a blistering dissent in Kelo. “Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.