Debate on Kelo v. City of New London SC Decision March 14, 2006

The Donald & Paula Smith Family Foundation
Present a debate Kelo and its Consequences:
Should homeowners fear the Supreme Court?s decision?

Featuring
Scott Bullock
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Counsel to Susette Kelo in her Supreme Court case

VS.

Michael Dorf
Columbia University School of Law
Author:No Litmus Test: Law and Politics in the 21st Century

Moderator
Harvey Shapiro
Contributing Editor, Institutional Investor

Co-Sponsor: The Federalist Society New York Lawyers Chapter
Last year?s Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London drew much attention. It held that the state?s eminent domain power can be used to take private property from home and small business owners and turn it over to another private party for private commercial development. By reading the Fifth Amendment?s ?public use? broadly, the Court created unlikely political allies of poor/minority advocates and property rights libertarians. This coalition has taken their case to the states and is advancing restrictions on what Kelo allowed. Should democratically elected representatives alone be able to decide what is ?public use?? Will this decision become the preferred tool that well-connected developers use against disenfranchised communities?

March 14th
6:30 P.M. Prompt
(Free and open to the public - Reception to follow)

The Graduate Center
The City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue, New York
(Corner of 34th Street & 5th Avenue)
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Aaron Russell
[email protected]
Mission of the Donald & Paula Smith Family Foundation
The Foundation defends free speech and a free society through the critical examination of ideas, sponsoring debates and related activities in the New York area. In a world where philosophical arguments all too often take the form of partisan rancor and anti-intellectual appeals, the Foundation hopes to serve as a reminder that we are united by a deeper loyalty: to skeptical analysis, reason, and truth-seeking. The Foundation aims to foster informed debates that are both vigorous and civil, on topics ranging from economics to ethics, from politics to art, and beyond. Some debates will yield clear answers and some debates can never be settled, but the argumentative process itself can serve as a model of rational discourse in an often divided society.
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