News-Record.com

Mark reports N.C. House Speaker Joe Hackney's remarks about the proposed constitutional amendment limiting the power of eminent domain.

The House bill has 96 sponsors (out of 120 members), but it's questionable at this point whether it will be allowed to come up for a vote.

Hackney's "concerns" might lead one to believe it won't.

Caution about amending the constitution is appropriate. But that doesn't mean one powerful legislator's caution should block fair consideration.

After all, if the legislature approves the measure, it would go before the voters of North Carolina in a statewide referendum. There would be months to fully debate its merits. Then the people decide. Democracy in action.

So I hope Hackney won't simply kill the proposal. That would be autocracy in action, which was the state of affairs in the bad old days of Jim Black.