The Public Land Development Corporation sure brings out strong emotions on both sides. The repeal or curtailment of the PLDC’s powers are expected to become a major fight this session at the Legislature.

And one Washington Times columnist writes that Hawaii ought to repeal the PLDC because it is the epitome of all that was evil that America’s founding fathers fled.

Danny de Gracia writes:

The State of Hawaii’s Public Land Development Corporationrepresents the perfect manifestation of the kind of dystopian, public-private moral hazard that America’s founders fled from in the Old World of Europe and sought to prevent in the Republic, fearing such entities would not long be safe companions to liberty.

Empowered with a charter “to make optimal use of the public land for the economic, environmental, and social benefit of all the people of Hawaii,” the small appointed board of directors of the PLDC have been given by Hawaii Act 55 (2011) the outrageous dispensation to be exempt from not only taxation, but “all statutes, ordinances, charter provisions and rules of any government agency relating to special improvement district assessments or requirements” and to do “any and all things necessary to carry out its purposes.”

de Gracia goes on to quote James Madison in the next graph. Read the full column.

The state agency was created to develop state lands and generate revenue for the Department of Land and Natural Resources. There are several measures before the Legislature that talk about its repeal, but whether those bills will get a hearing is another story.