The House and Senate are moving to choke off public money flowing to entities that would use eminent domain to take an individual's private property that local agencies consider economically beneficial to the community, as allowed by the Supreme Court in last week's KELO decision:

Bills introduced in the House and Senate would yank federal funds from any city or state project that forced people to sell their property to make way for a project like a hotel or strip mall.

The 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision last week has sparked an immediate and visceral backlash among conservatives. The response on Capitol Hill was unusual for its speed and bipartisan support, and for the biting language the lawmakers used to criticize the high court.

The ruling permits the "taking" of a home or neighborhood, with compensation, for such purposes as the construction of a shopping center. Activists said it has struck such a nerve that it will now be a key issue in convincing conservatives and libertarians to join the confirmation battle when one of the justices steps down.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) said he will introduce a Private Property Rights Protection Act that will prohibit any state or municipality from using federal funds for any project in which economic development is used as a justification for exercising eminent domain.

"This decision, in my opinion, has the potential of becoming the Dred Scott decision of the 21st century," Sensenbrenner said. He was referring to the 1857 ruling that affirmed slaves as property without the rights of citizens, and was overturned when the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868.

A committee description said the locality or state would "lose any federal funds that would contribute in any way to the project the property would be taken for." The lead Democratic sponsor is Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, and the committee said at least two other Democrats are co-sponsors.

Outstanding! This is one of the rare times that I find myself in agreement with Rep. Conyers.

In the Senate, John Cornyn is taking the lead:

Sensenbrenner said at the news conference that the federal government's money "will not be used to finance taking somebody's property from them to build a strip mall or a hotel or something simply because more tax revenue will come in as a result of an improvement." He said the decision, Kelo v. City of New London, "shows that the majority of the court had an utter disrespect for private property."

It is gratifying to see the House and Senate move so quickly to neutralize this outrageous decision that the Supreme Court issued last week. The Court showed that it had little respect for the property rights of private individuals, and it appears that the House and Senate are now ready to help protect private property from being taken by local communities who may believe it to be "economically beneficial."

However, if you are a private property owner, don't look to Nancy Pelosi or David Obey for relief:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at an earlier news conference that "very central in that Constitution is the separation of powers."

"When you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court, you are in fact nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court," Pelosi said. "This is in violation of the respect of separation of powers in our Constitution -- church and state as well. Sometimes the Republicans have a problem with that, as well."

In opposing a Republican amendment about the issue today, Rep. David Obey (Wis.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said on the floor today that the decision was "nutty" but that the solution is legislation or a constitutional amendment, not punitive measures.

"The idea that this House, every time we don't like a court decision, should decide that we're not going to allow federal money to be used to enforce that court decision is as nutty as the original court decision in the first place," Obey said. "So I would hope that we would recognize that the Founding Fathers created the system of separation of powers. They created three independent branches of government for a purpose."

Perhaps Pelosi might feel differently if a developer convinced her local community that its presence on her property had the potential to be more beneficial to her community than her presence is, and thus convinced the community to exercise eminent domain on her property?

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Related:

KELO Could Haunt Justice Souter
Disappointing Comment From Congressman Harold Ford
More KELO
KELO Likely To Be A Big Political Issue
Supreme Court: Local Communities Can Seize Property For Private Developers