Narrative as Lawmaking: The Anti-Kelo Story

Abstract

A mood of disquiet settled into the hearing chamber as the Louisiana House’s Civil Law Committee conducted its May 6, 2006, hearing on Senate Bill 859, which would eventually pass. The bill—the state’s response to Kelo v. City of New London creates amendments to the Louisiana Constitution to disable eminent domain as a tool for urban redevelopment; it disqualifies “economic development” as a public purpose. Facially, it bans transfer of the ownership or use of expropriated property to private entities for any purpose. It shrivels the universe of “blighted” parcels to those creating a “threat to health and safety caused by their existing use or disuse” and appears to restrict condemnation to only blighted parcels within a redevelopment area. As legislators in the reddest of the red states, the committee members were more than predisposed to approve SB 859. But their disquiet was tangible nonetheless because they remained stunned by the destruction visited on southern Louisiana by hurricanes Katrina and Rita several months earlier.