California State Representative Richard De La Torre recently introduced a bill that will supposedly protect the state's property owners against economic development condemnations similar to that upheld by the US Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London. There is only one small problem: the bill won't actually achieve anything of the kind. Tim Sandefur of the pro-property rights Pacific Legal Foundation explains why in this helpful post.

I don't have much to add to Tim's analysis of the measure, except to point out that it is very similar to the deceptive eminent domain "reform" measure that the California League of Cities is trying to put on the state's referendum ballot for this fall. The two proposed laws have extremely similar wording and almost exactly the same loopholes. Perhaps De La Torre and the CLC are working together in an effort to head off stronger reform proposals that might actually constrain the government's ability to take property for dubious "development" projects that often benefit the politically powerful at the expense of the politically weak, not to mention the general public.

Last fall, the California legislature enacted a different package of post-Kelo reforms that also pretended to protect property owners, while actually achieving almost nothing of substance.

As I argue in great detail in my paper on post-Kelo reform, California politicians are far from alone in their efforts to exploit voter ignorance by passing off ineffectual eminent domain reform as the real thing.