Julia Trigg Crawford manages the farm her grandfather bought in 1948 near Direct, TX south of the Red River. Last year a Canadian pipeline company called TransCanada told Julia Trigg and her family that a portion of their land would be taken by eminent domain so that the Keystone XL pipeline could be built across it.
Join us at a hearing in Austin on Monday July 23rd and demand that Texas legislators protect private property. (For more details email contact@wetexans.com)
You have the power to stand with Julia Trigg and to tell elected officials that private foreign corporations should NOT be able to take private property from its rightful owner.
Julia Trigg will face off with TransCanada in court next month. But right now the Land & Resource Management Committee of the Texas House of Representatives is getting ready to meet and discuss what steps our legislature should take to protect landowners.
While this is a positive step, the pipeline industry will be working to convince members of the committee and other legislators they should be given broad powers to take land from private citizens.
Legislators need to hear from you – let them know that pipeline companies have been abusing eminent domain for far too long and Texans aren’t going to stand for it any longer.
Did you know that until last year pipeline companies in Texas could take private property without ANY oversight whatsoever? If a pipeline company claimed it had the right to use eminent domain there was nothing a landowner could do except wait for the land to be taken and then file a lawsuit. Very few property owners have the resources to fight a legal battle with major pipeline companies, so the pipelines almost always won out-of-court settlements that allowed them to take the land.
But in 2011 the Texas Supreme Court struck down this abusive practice in the landmark Texas Rice Land Partners v. Denbury Green Pipelines decision. The court seemed appalled that this was going on, saying “Private property cannot be imperiled with such nonchalance, via an irrefutable presumption created by checking a certain box on a one-page government form. Our Constitution demands far more.”
Join us in Austin, make your voices heard, and let’s give power back to property owners! (Again, for more details email contact@wetexans.com)
As always, thank you for your support!
Calvin Tillman
Former Mayor, DISH, TX
(940) 453-3640
"Those who say it can not be done, should get out of the way of those that are doing it"
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