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Eminent Domain Bill Passes Senate, 31-0

The Texas Senate gives its okay to a new eminent domain protection bill
Image by Liang Shi for KUT News
The Texas Senate gives its okay to a new eminent domain protection bill

The Texas Senate has unanimously approved a bill that would give property owners more rights, when the government wants to exercise eminent domain.  The bill was one of a handful of issues that Governor Rick Perry designated "emergency legislation," to bring it to the senate floor within the first two months of the legislative session.

The bill prevents governmental entites from taking property from a landowner, unless that land is going to be put to public use.  Governments are also required to make a bona fide purchase offer and give the owner the option to buy the land back, if the public project hasn't started in 10 years.

The proposal now moves to the Texas House for consideration.

Ian Crawford joined KUT as News Editor in 2008, after spending over four years as a reporter/anchor at KLBJ Radio in Austin. He began his broadcasting career while still in high school in Southern Oregon. During high school and college at the University of Oregon, he worked at times as a reporter, news anchor, sports play-by-play reporter, music host and commercial producer before moving to Texas in 2003.