For years, back to when I argued the U.S. Supreme Court case Palazzolo v. Rhode Island as Rhode Island’s attorney general, big-money developers and regulated industries and the lawyer groups that front for them have been trying to turn the Constitution’s takings clause into a weapon against the government. The court’s decision in Knick v. Township of Scott just gave them a big prize—and showed how much control those interests now have.

At first glance, the facts in Knick are unremarkable: a parochial dispute between a landowner and a local government over daytime public access to a cemetery. But pull back the curtain and you see this case on a much bigger chessboard.