Topeka ? Decades ago, Bill House chose ranching over practicing law. Developers expressed interest a few years ago in buying his property in Cowley County. House wasn’t much interested but soon learned there were ways to force a sale.

House came Tuesday to the Statehouse – a week after celebrating his 90th birthday – to ask legislators to enact legal and constitutional protections for property rights. He and other Kansans want legislators to limit the power of state and local governments to force property sales.

The issue became hot last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could force sales for private economic development projects without violating property owners’ constitutional rights. House and other Kansans don’t like the idea that they could be forced to sell their property so someone else can develop it.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is reviewing two proposed constitutional amendments and three bills on the topic.

The panel began hearings Tuesday and plans to continue them today and Friday.

House, recalling his law-school lessons from the 1930s, noted that protections against eminent domain – the legal term for government taking property – go back to the Magna Carta of 1215, when angry English barons forced King John to accept written limits on his power.

Developers wanted House’s land so they could create a lake and build a resort around it. Local opposition caused legislators to intervene and block the project in 2004. But until then, House said, the developers were confident they could obtain his property.

The proposed amendments to the Kansas Constitution would prevent the transfer of property from one private owner, through government hands, to another.