Now That the Other Shoe’s Dropped . . .

In light of the double whammy of Raich and Kelo, those favouring limited government and private property rights may wonder where we are to go from here to salvage what is left of our grand experiment. Very few options come to mind.
1. Popular checks on power. Perhaps we can mitigate the effects of this Judicial insanity by electing officials who refuse to abuse our rights. This is, of course, what the Constitution was supposed to protect us against in the first place, but now our vigilance must be higher. It will require voters demanding that officials respect traditional definitions of interstate commerce and property rights — hardly salient, however critical, issues.
Update II: Will Collier sees how petty local politics can be, “And that doesn’t even touch on the prospects of developers making campaign donations–or outright kickbacks–to local politicians. This ruling is a license for corruption and abuse.” Meanwhile, Eric Claeys sees some relief, ” . . . courts defer to state and local proffers . . . unless the owner can prove that the purpose/benefit was pretextual and that the government actor that ordered the condemnation was in the developer’s back pocket.” (emphasis added) Still sounds hard to prove.
2. Rely on State laws and constitutions to protect property rights. Nine States, Utah being the most recent, already have statutes protecting property owners from the kind of theft authorized by the Supreme Court. Surely more can follow suit. Hopefully, the trend can be accelerated by voting with our feet.
Update: Instapundit suspects that State officials are in the back pocket of real estate developers, and so this kind of protection may be unlikely (and by extension #1). A reader also speculates on the reaction of the real estate market to the ruling. Will States with less capricious governments have an edge?
Update II: Zombyboy calls for this remedy, but Rick Brady shows that, “Fiscalization of land use is one likely unintended consequence of the decision.” Or as Bryan Costin simply asks, “Have you ever met a government that didn’t want more money?”
Update III: Rumblings in Texas for just such an amendment. Good for them; it sounds like they need it in Dallas.
3. Attrition. Undoing the damage from this Court’s liberal justices will require not only replacing them with more conservatives, but ones that hold as little regard for stare decisis as Thomas . . . and ones that will be emboldened by his dissents. The backlash from the current cases must be great enough to overcome the vociferous opposition such nominations would encounter.
Update: Jonathan Adler says that the White House is compromised in its ability to make hay out of Kelo. It obviously can’t use Raich.
4. Amendments. This seems really silly. We could correct the very specific wrongs done to eminent domain and the interstate commerce clause, but the general principles will remain. What are we to do? Pass those sections of the Constitution again with the coda, “. . . and this time, we mean it!”?
Update: A suggestion for an amendment (which sounds an awful lot like the 5th), from someone who has his (or her) priorities in order.
Update III: Stephen Littau has proposed an amendment to correct Kelo. I still think the first one was worded just fine.
5. Impeachment. This is the most extreme and far-fetched option, and would only work as a prelude to #3. Besides, what would the charge be?
Ultimately, we are forced to conclude that the remedy to these travesties will not be swift, easy, or certain.