In Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the taking of private property for the purpose of an economic redevelopment project. The decision has sparked a flurry of criticism. Much legal commentary calls for heightened scrutiny of such economic development takings under the public use provision of the Takings Clause. For these critics, the Supreme Court’s deferential standard is deficient in that it allows special interests to abuse the eminent domain power to pursue their own economic interests. As a result, governments routinely condemn property on behalf of politically connected private developers, who offer in return only the speculative public benefit of stimulating the local economy.  
    Apart from this line of criticism, this Note argues that seeking increased protection of private property rights under the public use provision lacks a strong constitutional basis. The Constitution does not require that economic legislation be free from the influence of special interests, and this principle is no less true for economic development takings. Given this weakness of the constitutional argument for heightened judicial scrutiny, if citizens wish to impose greater restraints on legislatures’ use of eminent domain for economic development, they must demand those restraints not from the Federal Constitution, but from state law.