1. According to the film, why was the Constitution written?

2. What did the Founders believe about property rights?

3. What is eminent domain?

4. Which of our founding documents grants the power of eminent domain to government?

5. Does eminent domain give government the power to take your property even if you don’t want

to sell?

6. According to the Constitution, which two conditions must be met for the government to

exercise eminent domain?

7. How has “public use” traditionally been defined? Give examples.

8. Since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Washington, D.C. urban renewal project in 1954,

how has eminent domain been used in a dramatically different way?

9. Who is Bruce Broadwater? Why is he in favor of using eminent domain for redevelopment?

10. What are journalist Steven Greenhut’s views about “just compensation”?

11. What does the city of Arcadia, CA want to do with the property belonging to the owner of

Rod’s Grill?

12. What has been the most important and controversial eminent domain case in United States

history? Who won? Was it a unanimous decision?

13. What was the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in the 2005 eminent domain case?

14. What has happened at the state level in response to the 2005 Supreme Court ruling?

 Students should provide evidence and reasoning to support their views.

1. The Founders made a mistake when they granted government the right of eminent domain.

2. Government should never intervene on behalf of private interests.

3. “There are people who think that property has more rights than human beings.”

4. If eminent domain can be used for any public purpose, then all property is at risk, especially

property owned by poor people without political influence.

5. “This is America. This is a country with free enterprise. You have all the rights to own your

property, your own home, your own business. You have the right to build your American

dream.”

6. “The use of eminent domain is a delicate tool, but it is a tool and it helps keep a community

clean; it helps keep a community vibrant. It’s a good tool and, definitely, I don’t think it should

be taken away.”

7. “You don’t take stuff that doesn’t belong to you. And that’s the way I was raised. That’s the

way I raised my children, and that’s the way most people think…These are our homes.”

Find out what the law is regarding eminent domain in your state and whether it has recently

changed.

“…nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”

--Eminent Domain clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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“The city has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide

appreciable benefits to the community, including—but by no means limited to—new jobs and

increased tax revenue…Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings

challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment.”

--Justice John Paul Stevens, majority opinion of the Supreme Court, Kelo vs. New London, CT

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“Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and

transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded…nothing is to prevent the state

from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a

factory.”

--Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court, Kelo vs. New