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Today's News Today's News This Issue Letters to the Editor Writers Eminent Domain Reform To Be Introduced in U.S.House of Representatives Property Owners Still Left Unprotected from Federally Funded Abuses Two Years After Kelo By The Castle Coalition Arlington, Va. - July 12, Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) introduced the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2007 to stop taxpayer funding of eminent domain abuse. This bipartisan bill would counter the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows governments to use eminent domain to seize private property on behalf of private developers in hopes of increasing tax revenue. The Act would deny for two fiscal years economic development funds to state and local governments that use eminent domain for private development. In 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H.R. 4128, the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005, by a vote of 376 to 38. The bill was co-sponsored by representatives from across the political and ideological spectrum, including Representatives Waters, Sensenbrenner, John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), and Henry Bonilla (R-TX). Despite unprecedented bipartisan political and public support, the bill languished in the Senate Judiciary Committee and ultimately died. "Federal protections from eminent domain abuse are long overdue," said Bert Gall, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which argued the Kelo case on behalf of the homeowners. IJ and the Castle Coalition - a nationwide grassroots organization of property owners and activists dedicated to stopping eminent domain abuse - have led the fight to reform state and federal eminent domain laws. "Even though the vast majority of Americans oppose the abuse of eminent domain for private development, the federal government still funds that abuse." June 23 marked the two-year anniversary of the Kelo decision. In every poll since that ruling, the public is overwhelmingly against eminent domain for private use. Forty-two states have passed eminent domain reforms reining in the Kelo decision, including 10 states where voters passed ballot measures by wide margins in last year's elections. But many of those reforms