At the Washington State Senate Law and Justice Committee Hearing on Jan. 23, Sen. Bob Hasegawa (D-District 11) spoke about the new State Bill 5142, which would create an act that would provide “owners of real estate taken through eminent domain by school districts, or sold under threat of eminent domain, the opportunity to purchase the real estate back when it is not put to intended public use.”

The bill is named the “Houston Eminent Domain Fairness Act” after John Houston and his family, who have been seeking reparations from the Renton School District after Houston’s parents were threatened with eminent domain in the 1960s in order for a new school to be built.

According to Houston, his parents were forced to sell their nearly 10 acres of land that the family used for farming and raising livestock. After two house fires and an explosive being set off on their front porch, the Houstons “gave up” and sold the land. In the aftermath, the family splintered and, as Houston told the Renton Reporter in 2023, “They talk about generational wealth and that was taken from me and my siblings, my children, my grandchildren.”

In the end, the school was never built and the current value of the former Houston land is much higher than what the Houstons were originally paid. Houston, his supporters and some senators believe that this is an injustice.

“The school district did not use the property for the purpose that it was so stated, which was to build a school there. Instead, some years later, it sold property to a developer and now there’s multiple plots on it with homes selling for over a million dollars,” said Hasegawa during the Senate hearing last week. “So, the school district did not profit as much as the developer did, but the point is that the Houston family, or in future circumstances, those under the threat of condemnation or actually under condemnation for their property for a public purpose, which is understandable if not used for that public purpose should be given the first right of refusal to buy it back for the amount that they received for the condemnation.”

SB 5142, which was prefiled on Jan. 7 and read for the first time on Jan. 13, is sponsored by Hasegawa, Sen. Mike Chapman, Sen. T’wina Nobles, Sen. Mark Schoesler and Sen. Lisa Wellman.

At the Senate Hearing, Hasegawa briefly spoke about the history of displacement and the use of eminent domain in the U.S. and its impact on Black families.

“Land is the foundation of wealth and generational wealth and when land is taken from you, the future opportunities for your family are are very difficult,” said Hasegawa. “The [National] Association of Realtors estimates that millions of acres of land Black people amassed after slavery, of the millions of acres, 90% of it no longer belongs to Black families. That’s since the Civil War.”

A recent study from the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) echoes the 90% statistic, saying that “the combination of a lack of access to legal advice and institutions, discriminatory actions by federal, state and local governmental entities, and legally condoned violence and hate crimes by White supremacists against Blacks, has resulted in the exploitative and frequently illegal taking of 90 percent of land that was held by Blacks in 1910.”

Hasegawa also spoke of the use of eminent domain, which allows the dispossession of private property for public use under special circumstances, with financial compensation.

”The Institute of Justice says that between 1949 and 1973, 2,532 projects were carried out by eminent domain in 992 cities, displacing 1 million people, two-thirds of whom were Black,” he said. “So when we understand the magnitude of this problem and how generational wealth has being stolen from people, I think this just opens the door to a much larger conversation about reparations and how we are going to deal with this problem in the future to make sure that everybody has equal opportunities for their families.”

Following Hasegawa’s comments, Sen. Phil Fortunato (R-District 31) showed support for the bill, saying that he “would have signed on to it” if he had known of the bill prior to the hearing.

John Houston, Shailene Houston and others then spoke during the public hearing.

Houston talked about the Renton School District’s current process of acquiring 32 homes and eight businesses in order to create a larger parcel of land for new facilities for Renton High School.

“Some of these homes are paid for, they’ve been passed on from grandparents, parents to their children and that’s being taken away,” said Houston. “I’ve heard stories, I’ve gotten texts and emails about some of these people have to leave Renton and they have to go farther south to find somewhere because what they’re going to get for their homes in Renton, […] they’re not going to be able to purchase a house in Renton and so it’s still going on and I think the Renton School District overreaches.”

Houston told his family’s story to the committee, saying that he’s glad that Sen. Hasegawa had heard his story and that people are listening.

Shailene Houston also spoke to the committee, saying that SB 5142 is “significant and historical.”

“Projects that use eminent domain often fail to live up to their hype and can end with vacant lots and empty promises,” she said. “By imposing tremendous costs, both social and economic in the form of lost communities, uprooted families, and destroyed small businesses, eminent domain often thwarts rather than helps economic growth.”

In an earlier phone interview with the Renton Reporter, John Houston said that he is not done and that there’s still some fight left.

“My hope is that it will stop school districts from taking just because they can,” said Houston. “It’s not going to help our family but one of my biggest goals is to stop it from happening to anyone else.”

For the full senate hearing on SB 5142, visit tvw.org/video/senate-law-justice-2025011354/?eventID=2025011354.