Interpretation of Amendments

I take exception to “The Right Can’t Have It Both Ways” (Column Left, Feb. 8). Douglas Kendall and James Ryan say it is “hypocritical” for the right to favor a “broad” interpretation of the 5th Amendment but a strict reading of the 14th Amendment. If we accept this, doesn’t the left display a corresponding hypocrisy? The article states there is a “broader meaning of equality” in the 14th Amendment, but that the 5th Amendment, “on plain reading prohibits only actual expropriations of private property.” The left can’t have it both ways.

They also grossly misrepresented the Lambert case. Claude Lambert is not claiming that the 5th Amendment “requires the city of San Francisco to buy his hotel, to prevent him from turning his residential units into a tourist hotel.” The Lamberts own a small hotel, which they would like to use for tourists. San Francisco is demanding $600,000 (over $19,000 per room) for allowing them to “convert” their “residential” rooms. The problem is the Lamberts never had “residential” rooms--the city simply declared some rooms to be “residential” by ordinance. If forcing private property owners to use their property to help the city make up for its shortage of rental housing does not fall into the authors’ notion of “expropriation of private property,” what does?

Our position in Wilson is entirely compatible with this idea of protecting individual rights. Race- and gender-based affirmative action ignores individuals; it advances the welfare of certain people at the expense of others for reasons having nothing to do with the conduct or qualifications of those people.

ANNE M. HAWKINS, Attorney

Pacific Legal Foundation

Sacramento