"It's got to be done at a State or Local level... our national legislators won't do a thing about it."
Not only "won't", but absolutely SHOULD NOT.
If there is anybody who thinks the Federal Government has ultimate responsibility and authority over LOCAL land use/planning & zoning decisions, you might as well go to your City Hall, fire everybody in sight and let Congress take over.
You really like that picture?
I've been listening to this bunch of BS about greedy developers and corrupt city official forcing poor ol' Aunty Em out of her humble ancestral home until I'm about to spit up my lunch. It may have helped ratings for some talk shows, but IMO it has accomplished little but shill for some lawyers whose clients are on the losing side of city or county land use or urban renewal plans, but think they can use the national media to jawbone their way into something that they haven't been able to get past the courts.
Styling it as an "eminent domain" issue is only slightly less phoney than the wailing about Aunty Em's shanty. My biggest shock about the case was that the Supreme Court even consented to hear it in the first place.
Okay, I spent a few years as a city councilman and later was appointed to a local planning & zoning authority that actually (gasp, shudder)set up an Urban Renewal District that affected a bunch of landowners. (If that makes me a corrupt local pol, maybe somebody can explain why I'm not at least a little richer.)
If you think that your local officials are a bunch of crooks who would throw you out of your house for a buck, maybe you should start by replacing the bums. If you think you're going to change anything by making a local bunch of crooks more accountable by passing a Federal law, maybe you should check the past couple of months' coverage of, say, the Senate Judiciary Committee.