For Immediate Release
March 8, 2010
CONTACT:Adam Guevara
info@joetegerdine.com
www.joetegerdine.com

JOE TEGERDINE: Mississippi Needs Eminent Domain Reform.

Mississippi 4thDistrict Republican candidate for Congress,
Joe Tegerdine, issued the following statement concerning
Eminent Domain Reform.
Our government should not have the authority to take ourprivate property and give it to a
corporation or other private entity.   There is no justifiable reason for infringing upon our
fundamental and constitutionally protected property rights.  Whatever the rational today,
will be the unwinding of more of our freedoms later.  Today is the day we begin to build
a bastion around our Constitution to protect our fundamental rights of Life, Liberty, and
Property.
We as Mississippians find ourselves in the unfortunatecircumstance of having to fight to
ensure these rights because our elected officials have been unable or unwilling to do so.
We have already successfully collected signatures for the Personhood Amendment (Life),
the Voter ID Amendment (Liberty), and have begun to work on the Eminent Domain
Amendment (Property).  We will have the opportunity to vote on these amendments
ourselves without having to rely on our elected officials to properly represent the voice of
the people.
Eminent Domain Reform is Initiative #31 and reads as follows:
“Initiative #31 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to prohibit state and local
government from taking private property by eminent domain and then conveying it to
other persons or private businesses for a period of ten years after acquisition. Exceptions
from the prohibition include drainage and levee facilities, roads, bridges, ports, airports,
common carriers, and utilities. The prohibition would not apply in certain situations,
including public nuisance, structures unfit for human habitation, or abandoned property.”
Farm Bureau worked hard in 2009 to pass H.B. 803 (Eminent Domain Reform). Though
H.B. 803 failed to pass, Farm Bureau is continuing this fight to protect the rights of
Mississippi property owners. Farm Bureau has created a website at
http://savingmyland.orgwhich has instructions and petitions for Initiative #31 which can
be printed directly from the website.We will need to collect 90,000 signatures by
October 1st, 2010 to get this Initiative on the ballot.
Please join me in this fight to get Eminent Domain Reform on the ballot and together we
can secure our rights to property and prosperity, for this generation and future
generations, together.

For more information visit http://savingmyland.org.