Here’s the State of Texas’s amicus brief in support of the property owners in the case now pending in the Texas Supreme Court about whether the developer of the proposed Dallas-Houston “bullet train” may exercise the delegated power of eminent domain as a “railroad company” or an “interurban electric railway company” as those terms are defined by Texas statutes.
The brief argues that no, this private entity isn’t a railroad company because that definition requires that the rail be presently operating, and this outfit isn’t. The AG also argues that the company doesn’t qualify as an interurban electric railroad because a bullet train isn’t a “small, localized, interurban railway expressly contemplated by statute.” Br. at 14.
And in what is to us the most interesting part of the brief, Texas also argues that an exercise of eminent domain power by this private entity would run afoul of the state constitutional
