Justice Thomas, dissenting.
"If such economic development takings are for a public use, any taking is, and the Court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution, as Justice OConnor powerfully argues in dissent. Ante, at 12, 813. I do not believe that this Court can eliminate liberties expressly enumerated in the Constitution and therefore join her dissenting opinion. Regrettably, however, the Courts error runs deeper than this. Todays decision is simply the latest in a string of our cases construing the Public Use Clause to be a virtual nullity, without the slightest nod to its original meaning. In my view, the Public Use Clause, originally understood, is a meaningful limit on the governments eminent domain power. Our cases have strayed from the Clauses original meaning, and I would reconsider them."
Justice OConnor, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
"...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 upgradedi.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the publicin the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings for public use is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of propertyand thereby effectively to delete the words for public use from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent."