In the Hartford Courant, journalist Jeff Benedict, author of a major account of the Kelo case, reports on an interesting encounter last year, where Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Richard Palmer apologized to Susette Kelo for voting to uphold the the taking of her home for “economic development” [HT: Cory Andrews]: If a state Supreme Court […]
Archive | Kelo
Brooke Shields to Star in Movie Based on Kelo v. City of New London
The Hartford Courant reports that Brooke Shields will star as Susette Kelo in a TV movie based on the notorious Kelo v. City of New London property rights case [HT: Cory Andrews]. The movie will be based on Jeff Benedict’s excellent journalistic account of the case, Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and […]
US Commission on Civil Rights Hearing on the Impact of Eminent Domain on Minority Groups
By Ilya Somin on August 12, 2011 12:17 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Earlier today, I testified before the US Commission on Civil Rights at a hearing on the “Civil Rights Implications of Eminent Domain Abuse.” The other panelists were Georgetown law professor Peter Byrne, Hilary Shelton of the NAACP, and David Beito, a prominent historian and chair of the Alabama State Advisory Committee to the USSCR. A […]
Federalism and Property Rights
By Ilya Somin on August 10, 2011 9:26 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Federalism, Kelo, Property Rights
My recently published article “Federalism and Property Rights” is now available on SSRN. It’s part of the University of Chicago Legal Forum Symposium on Governance and Power. Here is the abstract: Both the Supreme Court and leading legal scholars have often cited federalism as a reason to severely limit federal judicial enforcement of constitutional property […]
The Judicial Reaction to Kelo
By Ilya Somin on May 31, 2011 5:43 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
My article “The Judicial Reaction to Kelo” is now available on SSRN. It is the Introduction to the Albany Government Law Review Symposium on Eminent Domain in the United States, which includes contributions by several well-known eminent domain scholars including my colleague Steve Eagle, Amy Lavine, and David Schultz, among others. Here is the abstract: […]
Upcoming Talks in Madison, Wisconsin on the Individual Mandate and Property Rights
By Ilya Somin on January 24, 2011 10:06 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Federalism, Federalist Society, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
This Wednesday, I will be giving two talks in Madison, Wisconsin. One, sponsored by the Federalist Society Lawyers Division, will be at a panel on the Obamacare individual mandate litigation. The other two panelists are Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (Wisconsin recently became one of the 28 states challenging the mandate in court) and […]
Somin Family Featured in December 2010 Issue of Engage
By Ilya Somin on December 30, 2010 10:45 pm in Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights, Sports and Games
The December 2010 issue of Engage features not one but two items written by members of the Somin family: a debate on Kelo v. City of New London and eminent domain reform between University of Chicago Law Professor (and former Dean) Saul Levmore and myself; and an article on Title IX and women’s sports written […]
Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Columbia University Takings Case
By Ilya Somin on December 15, 2010 1:02 am in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Sadly, the Supreme Court has refused to hear the Columbia University blight takings case. This New York state supreme court decision was a particularly egregious instance of the abuse of “blight” condemnations to take property that was not blighted in any meaningful sense and transfer it to a powerful private interest group. I wrote an […]
New Survey Data on Public Attitudes Towards Kelo and Economic Development Takings
By Ilya Somin on November 23, 2010 5:53 pm in Eminent Domain, Kelo, Political Ignorance, Polls, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that government has the power to forcibly transfer property from one private owner to another in order to promote “economic development,” was one of the most unpopular decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Polls conducted soon after the decision was issued in 2005 found that […]
Our Amicus Brief Urging the Supreme Court to hear the Columbia University “Blight” Takings Case
By Ilya Somin on October 28, 2010 10:58 am in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
I recently wrote an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the Columbia University blight takings case, on behalf of the Institute for Justice (the public interest law firm that litigated Kelo v. City of New London, among many other important property rights cases), The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the Cato Institute. […]
Talk on Kelo and Eminent Domain at Lewis & Clark Law School
By Ilya Somin on October 10, 2010 3:23 pm in Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
For those who might be interested, I will be speaking at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon tomorrow. The topic is my work on Kelo v. City of New London and post-Kelo eminent domain reform. I will also touch briefly on post-Kelo developments in state constitutional law on public use issues, including the […]
Kagan’s Testimony on Property Rights
By Ilya Somin on July 1, 2010 6:54 pm in Eminent Domain, Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Kelo, Property Rights, Supreme Court
In an exchange with Republican Senator Charles Grassley yesterday, Elena Kagan made some interesting comments on property rights and the controversial Kelo decision: GRASSLEY: …. I want to start with private property. The takings clause of the Fifth Amendment states, “Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” The plain language […]
Universities and Eminent Domain
By Ilya Somin on June 25, 2010 12:41 am in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
In Kaur v. New York Urban Development Corporation, its recent decision upholding the condemnation of property for transfer to Columbia University, the New York Court of Appeals claimed that the use of eminent domain to transfer land to a private university is more defensible than its use to transfer land to commercial corporations, as in […]
New York High Court Upholds Columbia University Takings
By Ilya Somin on June 24, 2010 5:44 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
In today’s decision in Kaur v. New York State Urban Development Corp.
Property Rights Five Years After Kelo
By Ilya Somin on June 23, 2010 4:23 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Today is the fifth anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London, one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history. In Kelo, a narrow 5-4 majority of the Court ruled that the condemnation of private property for transfer to other private individuals for purposes of promoting “economic development” was permitted by the Fifth […]