In 2005, in the case of Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court allowed officials to seize and raze an entire neighborhood of well-maintained homes and businesses in the hopes that someone else could build fancier homes and businesses. According to the dissenters, the majority’s opinion effectively deleted the provision of the U.S. Constitution requiring that takings be for a “public use.” On this episode, we ask: what, if anything, is left of the prohibition on using eminent domain to take property from Person A merely to give it to Person B? And we look at some current litigation that can restore traditional limits on the government’s power of eminent domain.
Click here for transcript.
Resources
Dana Berliner, Looking Back 10 Years After Kelo
Gideon Kanner, The Public Use Clause: Constitutional Mandate or “Hortatory Fluff”?
Gideon Kanner, Do We Need to Impair or Strengthen Property Rights in Order to “Fulfill their Unique Constitutional Role”?
Brinkmann v. Town of Southold, NY
Fisher v. City of Ocean Springs, MS
Recent Episodes
Needless Friction. And Treason.
On this episode: the story of Pullman abstention, the first of several abstention doctrines the Supreme Court invented to let federal judges decline to decide […]
Listen NowRooker and Feldman and Treason | Season 4, Ep. 1
Next week, the Supreme Court is going to hear a huge civil rights case that no one is talking about—because the legal issue before the […]
Listen NowIndian Country | Season 3, Ep. 14
In our final episode of the season, we head to Indian Country and survey several strands of Supreme Court precedent that prevent Native Americans from […]
Listen NowNeat Takings Tricks | Season 3, Ep. 13
The Fifth Amendment says that the government must pay just compensation when it takes private property for public use, a command that, regrettably, is often […]
Listen Now