ALBANY – Thrusting the heated issue of eminent domain into the forefront of the governor’s race, Republican candidate William Weld vowed that, if elected, he would bar state government from condemning private property and transferring it to another private owner.

In a speech yesterday in New York City, where protracted legal battles over eminent domain are playing out in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Mr. Weld, a former federal prosecutor who was also governor of Massachusetts, said the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of giving local governments broad leeway in seizing private property reminded him of “Communist China.” And he challenged his Democratic rival, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, to define his position on an issue that is gaining traction in New York and other states.

“Instead of the security of property, the Kelo court made it clear that the great purpose of government is now the security of the tax base,” he said, referring to the court case. “King of bootstrap, if you ask me. It has put alleged collective needs ahead of individual liberty and property rights, and increased tax revenue ahead of the pursuit of individual happiness. It’s a decision I would expect in Communist China,” he said, addressing the Manhattan Institute think tank.

Mr. Weld, who is trying to separate himself from a pack of Republican candidates aggressively seeking the party’s nomination, is seizing upon a national issue that has united liberals and conservatives and is likely to be a dominant concern of lawmakers here following the passage of the state budget.

In a telephone interview with The New York Sun, Mr. Weld stopped short of criticizing Governor Pataki’s stance on eminent domain, but he is drawing a line between himself and the tradition in New York of governors supporting expansive condemnation powers. It’s a tradition most closely associated with Governor Rockefeller and the finance authority he created, the Urban Development Corporation, which later became the Empire State Development Corporation. During Mr. Pataki’s tenure, the corporation, headed by Charles Gargano, has supported eminent domain for economic development purposes such as increasing jobs.

Speaking to the Sun, Mr. Weld said the problem is not with the governor but with the state law that permits such broad uses of eminent domain. “I think it’s important for the next governor to make sure we’re not using eminent domain just to effectuate the transfer of private property from one private owner to another,” he said. “That’s not what the Fifth Amendment means.” The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution bars government from seizing property except for “public use.”

In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court in June in the case Kelo v. City of New London upheld a broad interpretation of “public use,” allowing the Connecticut city to condemn private property on 90 acres of waterfront land to make way for office buildings, a marina, a hotel, and new homes.

While in that case the liberal justices sided with New London, in New York City some liberal community activists have joined forces with property rights groups to oppose development projects, such as Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn and Columbia University’s expansion of its campus into West Harlem. Mr. Weld said he has no problem with Mr. Ratner’s project.

In his remarks before the Manhattan Institute, Mr. Weld said that as governor he would “introduce legislation preventing the use of eminent domain to promote incidental government benefits, such as an enhanced tax base.” He also said the state “must not invoke” eminent domain in cases of private-to-private transfers of property.

“Will Mr. Spitzer take a similar pledge? Who knows. I do know that in public remarks, Mr. Spitzer said that Kelo didn’t change the law much,” Mr. Weld said. A spokeswoman for Mr. Weld said the information about the attorney general’s position was taken from an article that appeared in the Post-Standard newspaper in Syracuse. The article, from June 28, 2005, reported that Mr. Spitzer played down the importance of the Supreme Court’s June decision. He reportedly said politicians who invoke eminent domain have to persuade the voters that they are seizing private property for a valuable public purpose. Mr. Weld also said the attorney general advised Mr. Pataki to veto a bill that would force the government to mail notices to land owners of planned public takeovers.

A spokesman for Mr. Spitzer’s campaign did not return calls for comment.

Other Republican candidates for government, Randy Daniels and John Faso, have said they oppose the Supreme Court’s ruling. Mr. Faso said, however, that Mr. Weld’s position was too inflexible and would have precluded the state from contributing to the redevelopment of 42nd Street in Manhattan during the 1990s, when the state forced the removal of massage parlors and pornography shops.

This spring, the state Legislature is expected to debate several pieces of legislation that would put restrictions on the government’s power to condemn private property. A Democratic Assemblyman who represents a district in Westchester County and is a candidate for attorney general, Richard Brodsky, said Mr. Weld’s proposals suggest that he hasn’t “thought it through.”

Under Mr. Weld’s proposal, he said, the state would be forbidden to invoke eminent domain to build a road connecting a highway to a university. Mr. Brodsky has introduced legislation that would create an eminent domain “ombudsman” who would resolve disputes.