I would argue that when legislative action renders a Court ruling moot, it has "overturned" the ruling. At a minimum it has severely limited the Court. Congress did this twice in the 1990s, first with the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which concerned affirmative action, and then with religious freedom with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993 (which, granted, was later declared unconstitutional in part). This is quite easy for Congress to do when the Court is interpreting statutes, as in the affirmative action cases (Crossan and Adarand), and harder when it is a constitutional issue, such as with the RFRA (which concerned Oregon v. Smith). Sen. Cornyn's bill will define for the purpose of federal law what "public purpose" means. So it won't touch sate and local law. This is a game of semantics, and I am happy to change "overturn" to "render moot" or "severely limit".
Update: University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein argues against Kelo. One pertinent part:
All that need be shown to Justice Stevens was procedural regularity and some claim that the proposed project served some "public benefit." Astute readers will quickly note that the phrase "public benefit" is far broader than the constitutional words "public use."
To reach its decision the Court had to ignore the plain language of the Constitution.
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