Cato Institute conference on "Property Rights on the 10th Anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London"

On Thursday, June 11, the Cato Institute will hold a conference on "Property Rights on the 10th Anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London." The conference will assess the Supreme Court's most controversial modern property rights decision, and its legacy. The event is free and open to the public. The schedule and registration information are available here.

I will be speaking at a panel focused on my just-published book "The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain"—the first book about the Kelo case and its aftermath written by a legal scholar. Joining me on the panel will be the lawyers who argued the case before the Supreme Court: Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice (who represented the property owners), and Wesley Horton (counsel for the City of New London).

There will also be a second panel focusing on eminent domain reform since Kelo, featuring Dana Berliner of the Institute for Justice, Hilary Shelton of the NAACP, and Jeremy Hopkins, a leading advocate of eminent domain reform in Virginia.

The conference will begin with remarks by famed takings scholar Richard Epstein, and New York Rep. Tom Reed, founder and chair of the congressional Private Property Rights Caucus.

One of the interesting aspects of the debate over Kelo and economic development takings is that it is an unusual issue where the NAACP and conservative Republicans such as Rep. Reed end up on the same side. The coalition on the other side also has some strange bedfellows, including left of center legal scholars and urban planners, and "pro-business" Republicans like former Mississippi governor and Republican National Committee Chair Haley Barbour.