ILYA SOMIN ON the Seattle “CHOP” Takings Case. “As I see it, the key question here is whether the City’s actions were closely enough connected to the CHOP activists’ violations of the owners’ property rights to be considered as assistance “sufficiently direct and substantial” enough to qualify as a taking. Given the scale of the city’s alleged assistance to the private occupiers, I tentatively think the answer is yes. The city authorities apparently provided extensive aid to the CHOP activists both by giving the material assistance, and by allowing them to use city property. And it was foreseeable they would use these resources to violate local landowners’ property rights.”