[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Suzette Kelo's home was moved because of court ruling. Photo: Christopher Capoziello for NY Times"]Suzette Kelos home was moved because of court ruling. Photo: Christopher Capoziello for NY Times[/caption] I don't know if the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who allowed the city of New London to seize the land where Suzette Kelo lived in a two-story, pink, wood-frame house and turn it over to Pfizer, Inc. for an economic development project are red-faced with embarrassment today, but they should be. As The New York Times reported on its front page today, Pfizer is leaving town, along with 1,400 jobs.The majority in the court's 5-4 ruling in 2005 in Kelo v. New London - justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy and Souter - ruled that it was an acceptable "public use" (under the Fifth Amendment) for government to seize one citizen's property and give it to another if it served an economic development purpose that would benefit the broader public. The justices rejected the argument that such a use of eminent domain blurs the boundaries between public and private. "Quite simply, the governments pursuit of a public purpose will often benefit individual private parties," Justice Stevens wrote.The justices also rejected the argument that officials should require a "reasonable certainty" that the promised benefits would actually come through. Anyone who has followed local economic development projects knows that the claims made to justify taxpayer subsidies often turn out to be inflated. But Stevens wrote: "A constitutional rule that required postponement of the judicial approval of every condemnation until the likelihood of success of the plan had been assured would unquestionably impose a significant impediment to the successful consummation of many such plans."That is to say: you have no protection if your local officials suddenly decide your front yard is a good place for a shopping mall. I don't think Justices O'Connor or Thomas exaggerated when, in their dissents, they said the court had effectively removed the "public use" protection from the Fifth Amendment.For reasons I don't understand, opposition to this excessive use of government authority has come more from the right than the left, whether on the Supreme Court or in terms of grassroots organizing. (Conservative Christian groups pushed a campaign against the Kelo ruling that contributed to the making of many state laws trimming the use of eminent domain.)In New York, where I live, opponents of the use of eminent domain have largely been liberals, dating back to the days of Robert Moses. These battles continue; Mayor Bloomberg is a big supporter of unhindered governmental use of eminent domain, and had the city file a brief supporting New London in the Kelo case.

Paul Moses is the author, most recently, of The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia (NYU Press, 2023). He is a contributing writer. Twitter: @PaulBMoses.

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