IV 
109TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 880 
Expressing the sense of the House on the occasion of the first anniversary 
of the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 20, 2006 
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey submitted the following resolution; which was 
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House on the occasion of the 
first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo 
v. City of New London. 
Whereas June 23, 2006 is the first anniversary of the United 
States Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New 
London; 
Whereas the limitations on Government power contained in 
the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment provide an 
essential safeguard of the property rights of the people 
of the United States; 
Whereas the majority decision in Kelo granted local govern-
ments broad power to take the property of one private 
party and transfer it to another private party if the local 
government decided that the transfer would promote eco-
nomic development; 
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•HRES 880 IH 
Whereas the Supreme Court in Kelo once again engaged in 
the dangerous practice of judicial activism by creating 
policy, instead of interpreting the Constitution and de-
fending the rights protected by it; 
Whereas the Kelo court authorized an expanded power to 
take private property that is far broader than the power 
the people intended to grant in the Constitution; 
Whereas Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, in a dissent joined 
by three other Justices, suggested that the decision would 
lead to governments taking from the poor and giving to 
the rich, saying that ‘‘[a]ny property may now be taken 
for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout 
from this decision will not be random [because t]he bene-
ficiaries are likely to be those citizens with dispropor-
tionate influence and power in the political process, in-
cluding large corporations and development firms’’; 
Whereas Justice O’Connor effectively argued that the major-
ity opinion in Kelo eliminates ‘‘any distinction between 
private and public use of property—and thereby effec-
tively [deletes] the words ‘for public use’ from the 
Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment’’; 
Whereas the House of Representatives showed its strong dis-
approval of the Kelo court’s interpretation of the Takings 
Clause by passing, by a vote of 231 to 189, an amend-
ment to the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, 
and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, 
District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appro-
priations Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (H.R. 3058) that pro-
hibited any funding made available under that bill from 
being used to enforce the judgment of the Supreme Court 
of the United States in the Kelo case; and 
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•HRES 880 IH 
Whereas the House of Representatives showed its further 
support for private property rights in November 2005 by 
passing the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 
2005 (H.R. 4128), which seeks to curb abuse of the 
Takings Clause by Federal, State, and local Government 
agencies, with strong bipartisan support and by a vote of 
376 to 38: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) reaffirms its commitment to protecting private 
property rights as the foundation of liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness in the Constitution; and 
(2) reiterates its strong support for the Private Prop-
erty Rights Protection Act of 2005. 
Æ 
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