Susette Kelo lost her case — but started a movement to reform the law of eminent domain

On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court said the city of New London, Conn., could take Susette Kelo's house. A city-sponsored agency had a plan for condos, a hotel and research labs for Pfizer Inc., and Kelo's house was in the way. Taking her house was for the public good, the city said, and a majority of the Supreme Court agreed.

When you lose at the Supreme Court, you're supposed to give up. But in America, the Supreme Court is not the ultimate arbiter. The public is.

Susette Kelo and her lawyers didn't give up. They went to the press. They went to political groups. They took the issue to the states, and law has been changed in more than 40 of them. Thus is victory snatched from the wrecking ball of defeat.

The story of how that was done is told in a new book, "Little Pink House," written by Jeff Benedict, who covered the Kobe Bryant rape case for Sports Illustrated. Benedict was in town last week along with Kelo, the star of his book.

Her willingness to not give an inch — to be "that woman on the corner," she told me — was her power, along with support of her neighbors and of one politician, New London's former mayor. Kelo had no money or fancy education. She was a redhead called "Red," middle-aged, divorced and working as a nurse.

In 1998, she bought a small, old house that was within sniffing range of a sewage plant. It cost $56,000 and she defended it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Her law firm, the donor-supported Institute for Justice, represented her because it liked her cause and her toughness. It charged her nothing. Its goal was not to get her more money for her house, though in the end it did. Its goal was to beat the government, thereby changing the law that allows property takings for "economic development."

The Bill of Rights says government can take property "for public use." Originally, that meant things that are owned by the public or that had a public obligation, like a power line. But over the years, the definition expanded. "Public use" became thought of as public benefit.

New London argued that private research labs, condos and a hotel were a "public use" because they increased tax revenue and jobs. By that standard, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor famously pointed out, government could take your house for a shopping mall because the mall would pay more taxes than you. You'd be paid for your house, but you'd have to sell it.

Which brings us to Washington. Our state constitution says, with a few exceptions, that private property "shall not be taken for private use." That sounds real tough, but the state redevelopment law neuters it. The head of the Institute for Justice's Seattle office, William Maurer, says the law allows property to be taken if an area suffers from "blight," and it allows "blight" to include almost anything.

Attorney General Rob McKenna says the law "clearly allows takings for private redevelopment," though in his view the state constitution forbids it.

Following the Kelo case, McKenna formed a task force on the law of takings, and he expects it to propose a much tighter definition of "blight."

Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, has a related bill that would give owners the right to buy back property taken but not used within seven years — a thing that sometimes happens. The land taken from Susette Kelo and her neighbors is still vacant.

Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is bramsey@seattletimes.com