Kelo - legal comments on HR 4128

The Supreme Court's holding in Kelo v. City of New London
(pdf, 412KB, 58p., from the Supreme Court) (June 23, 2005) that private property can be taken for private economic development to serve a "public purpose" prompted many legislative proposals in states and Congress to limit this use of eminent domain.

In Congress, the current principal "Kelo bill" is H.R. 4128 (pdf, 48KB, 13p., from GPO), the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently issued legal comments on H.R. 1428 and the Bond Amendment. (The Bond Amendment, limiting federal funds to public-use condemnation, was inserted into an FY2006 appropriations bill, enacted as PL 109-115. The full text of the Bond Amendment is in the CRS report.) Legal comments are made on four sections of H.R. 1428 (in this order): sections 2, 8, 4, and 3. Section 2, Prohibition on Eminent Domain Abuse by States, is the "heart" of the bill. In Section 8, Definitions, the key term analyzed is "economic development." Mention is made here of Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (html) as a leading Kelo precedent. Section 4 covers Private Right of Action, and Section 3, Prohibition on Eminent Domain Abuse by the Federal Government, is the federal counterpart to Section 2.

See earlier FR posts on Kelo via here.

Condemnation of Private Property for Economic Development: Legal Comments on the House Passed Bill (H.R. 4128) and Bond Amendment, CRS Report, RL33208
(pdf, 80KB, 17p., from Open CRS)