My classmate Judy Coleman and IJer Steven Anderson are debating about legislative responses to Kelo over at the Legal Affairs Debate Club. While my political and legal sympathies lie eminently with IJ on this issue, I share some of Judy's misgivings about reform efforts thus far.

Judges tend to be notoriously bad agents of the people who enact constitutional provisions or legislation to set forth rules far into the future (or even not that far). This suggests that structural reform might be more effective here than simply renaming the legal standards so that they can be mis-applied by a new round of Justice Peckhams. But what structures?

I continue to be amused by the nothing that has so far happened since New London prevailed in the Supreme Court last term in its attempt to take property belonging to certain homeowners.

At any rate, via Ben Barros I see that the mayor of New London has proposed a compromise (the city will rent out the houses to Kelo et. al., but allow them to stay living there). So far, there appears to be little interest in this offer, which is intriguing. Given that the city legally owns the property now, it shows quite a bit of faith that the NLDC will continue to find itself unable to displace them.

Reading this Washington Post story about eminent domain in the reconstruction of New Orleans, I was confused by this claim:

Eminent domain, to clear blighted and flood-devastated areas, will no doubt be involved. Had Kelo turned out the other way, the plan to rebuild New Orleans would certainly have taken a different tack.