Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Wisconsin Law Review
Publication Date
1-2024
ISSN
0043-650X
Page Number
641
Keywords
assessments, The Takings Clause, development exactions
Disciplines
Law | Property Law and Real Estate
Abstract
In the spring of 2024, the United States Supreme Court decided Sheetz v. County of El Dorado. The case resolved a long-standing question: whether the constitutional rules applying to ad hoc development exactions also apply to legislated exactions. They do. It is an important case, and one that may reconfigure the financing of municipal infrastructure. This Essay examines the case through the lens of Professor Bernadette Atuahene's concept of "stategraft," or the government illegally using its regulatory power to raise money from the poor and politically powerless. This Essay compares legislative exactions to other forms of municipal finance like special exceptions and argues that they actually provide fewer opportunities for stategraft. This Essay, therefore, concludes that legislated development exactions should not be subject to heightened constitutional review.
Recommended Citation
Christopher Serkin,
Exacting Assessments: Sheetz and the Problem of Stategraft, 2024 Wisconsin Law Review. 641
(2024)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1602