Jul 1, 2005
U.S. House Challenges Supremes on Kelo: A Left/Right Coalition?
The U.S. House has voted 231 to 189 to deny federal funds for any state or city project that uses eminent domain for private development purposes. While most of the backers were Republican, several leftist Democrats joined them including John Conyers and Maxine Waters as well as socialist independent Bernie Sanders. Mark Brady has already noted that other leftists, including Ralph Nader and Alexander Cockburn, have spoken out against the decision.
I am surprised by the tremendous interest which ordinary people have taken in this issue. Two of my undergraduates independently took the initiative of coming to my office to tell me how much they deplored Kelo!
UPDATE
My old friend Todd Zywicki over at Volokh has more details including a link to a Washington Times article that features some hard-hitting quotations from Sanders and Waters.