Timothy Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation has a good post outlining the the dangers posed by a California ballot question drafted by local governments interested in expanding their already very broad power to condemn property: [J]ust before Christmas, the law firm of Rutan & Tucker—the leading California law firm for cities that want to […]
Archive | Blight
New Jersey Adopts Dubious Post-Kelo Eminent Domain “Reform” Law that is Likely to Endanger Property Rights More than it Protects Them
New Jersey recently became the 45th state to adopt an eminent domain reform law in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s controversial 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for government to condemn private property and give it to another private owner in order to promote […]
The Case for Federal Eminent Domain Reform
By Ilya Somin on July 1, 2013 7:54 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Nick Sibilla of the Institute for Justice, the libertarian public interest firm that litigated Kelo v. City of New London and many other property rights cases, has a good op ed in Forbes on the need for reform measures to curb federal funding of abusive condemnations by state and local governments: Eight years ago, the […]
New Jersey Legislature Passes Ineffective Eminent Domain “Reform” Law
By Ilya Somin on June 23, 2013 11:45 am in Blight, Eminent Domain, Political Ignorance, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
New Jersey is one of only six states that have not enacted an eminent domain reform law since the the Supreme Court’s controversial 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that state and local governments have the power to condemn private property and transfer it to other private interests in order […]
Alabama Undermines its Post-Kelo Eminent Domain Reform Law
By Ilya Somin on April 3, 2013 10:55 am in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s controversial 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that state and local governments could condemn property for transfer to private parties for “economic development,” 44 states passed eminent domain reform laws intended to curtail abusive condemnations. Many of the new laws only pretended to […]
Upcoming Speech on Virginia Eminent Domain Reform – With Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
By Ilya Somin on October 23, 2012 10:45 am in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
This Thursday at 6:30 PM, I will be speaking on property rights and eminent domain reform in Virginia at the Old Dominion Boat Club in Alexandria. I will be joined by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, or perhaps it is more correct to say that I will be joining the AG. The event is open […]
Thoughts on the Virginia Eminent Domain Reform Referendum Question
By Ilya Somin on October 16, 2012 4:24 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Various people have asked me what I think of Virginia Question 1, the eminent domain reform referendum question that will be on the ballot in November. Question 1 is one of many eminent domain reform referendum questions developed as part of the political backlash against the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New […]
Eminent Domain Abuse in Virginia
By Ilya Somin on May 15, 2012 11:20 am in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist A. Barton Hinkle recently published this piece on a case of eminent domain abuse in Virginia: As a general rule, progressives do not get worked up about property rights the way conservatives do. This is a mistake — as a case out of Norfolk shows. To the progressive eye, property is bound […]
Debating the Constitutionality of New York Blight Condemnations
By Ilya Somin on March 12, 2012 9:42 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
The Fordham Urban Law Journal City Square website has posted a debate between NYU Professor Roderick Hills and myself on the the New York Court of Appeals controversial decisions upholding “blight” condemnations in the Atlantic Yards and Columbia University cases. In my 2011 symposium article “Let there Be Blight,” I argued that these takings violated […]
My Op Ed on the Passage of Mississippi Measure 31
By Ilya Somin on November 9, 2011 3:39 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Today, I published an op ed in the Daily Caller on the passage of Mississippi referendum Measure 31, an important eminent domain reform law. Here is an excerpt: The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London generated a record political backlash. Kelo upheld the condemnation of private property for transfer to […]
Vote Yes on Mississippi Measure 31
By Ilya Somin on November 7, 2011 7:37 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Tomorrow, Mississippi voters will decide the fate of Measure 31, an important eminent domain reform proposal. Mississippi is one of only seven states that has not enacted any eminent domain reforms at all since the Supreme Court’s decision controversial decision upholding “economic development” takings in Kelo v. City of New London. Measure 31 would effectively […]
Speech at University of Mississippi School of Law on Eminent Domain Referendum Initiative Measure 31
By Ilya Somin on October 6, 2011 3:07 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
On Monday, October 10, I will be speaking at the University of Mississippi School of Law on a Mississippi eminent domain reform referendum initiative, Measure 31 (which is on the ballot this November). The talk is sponsored by the University of Mississippi Federalist Society, and will begun at 12:30 PM in Room 2094. Mississippi is […]
The Tragedy of Urban Renewal
Reason TV has a short but interesting video about the urban renewal era of the 1950s and 60s, when hundreds of thousands of people – mostly poor minorities – were forcibly displaced from their homes by eminent domain. As the video notes, often the land was transferred to politically connected developers and other influential interest […]
My US Commission on Civil Rights Testimony on the Impact of Eminent Domain Abuse on Minority Groups
By Ilya Somin on September 22, 2011 11:14 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights, Racism
On August 12, I testified at a US Commission on Civil Rights hearing on the “Civil Rights Implications of Eminent Domain Abuse.” The video of the oral testimony is available here. I have now made my more detailed written testimony available online here. Here is the Introduction, which includes a summary of the rest [footnotes […]
Let there be Blight – My New Article on Blight Condemnations in New York
My new article, “Let There Be Blight: Blight Condemnations in New York after Goldstein and Kaur” is now available on SSRN. It critiques the New York Court of Appeals’ recent controversial blight takings decisions in the Atlantic Yards and Columbia University eminent domain cases. It was part of a Fordham Urban Law Journal symposium on […]