As I read news articles about local towns banning home businesses, my mind keeps wandering back to long forgotten school days when we studied the US Constitution.
There we learned about something unconstitutional… a “Bill of Attainder” which you can read about here or at Wikipedia.
Such bills were passed to allow the state to confiscate property without an actual trial convicting people of any crime. By classifying people into a certain category, such unlucky folk were presumed guilty and their rights and properties forfeit.
That’s why our Constitution forbids such “Bills of Attainder”… in theory.
But the question lingers in my mind.
(Maybe a lawyer will speak up and come to our aid. I’d like to hear your input.)
Are rulings by local town councils or similar entities which deprive residents the right to use their dwellings for the purpose of making money anything except illegal “Bills of Attainder”?
They presume that a home business will clog the roads, increase foot traffic, etc. without any proof of this whatsoever.
Furthermore, they confiscate the property of these people by inhibiting its use when no crime has even been alleged.
To be sure, the great bills of attainder which provoked such Constitutional outrage listed persons by name.
Some in America though listed people by classification… “Loyalist” or “Tory”.
Got a home business problem with your town council?
Maybe you can get a threatening letter to be sent to them from a Constitutional Lawyer?
Basically laws against home businesses presume your guilt and detrimental influence on your
community when that’s yet to be proven.
I can understand your residential development’s concern about you starting an auto salvage yard.
It’s probably not cost effective for you to use expensive real estate that way either.
But there are laws so broad that anyone selling a used book on ebay is a criminal.
It’s worth considering… if only for the sake of freedom. Maybe by alleging that the entity in question has created a Bill of Attainder, you can force them to become specific about what’s being prohibited. That could give you the loopholes you need to keep working without be attacked by a vague law that serves as an illegal bill of attainder.
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