Thread: 7 Answers to 7 Questions About the Nevada Rancher Situation from The Blaze

It is amazing to me that you can make a sticky out of this. Guess your posts can't stand on their own merit...Hmmm Kind of like the government works, force fed..

Originally Posted by kathyet2

It is amazing to me that you can make a sticky out of this. Guess your posts can't stand on their own merit...Hmmm Kind of like the government works, force fed..

Oh please give me a break, you are totally running on emotion, this thread is trying to get the facts out not run on emotion, sensationalism or whatever else is fueling this fiasco. It is ridiculous that this has escalated to the point it has and hopefully it does not end in blood shed. Bundy did not pay his grazing fees and the feds ARE thugish in what they do, two wrongs DO NOT make a right IMO.
The whole thing needs to hashed out in court not on the Bundy ranch and if people do not want the feds taking care of public land as they have for years and years, CHANGE THE LAW, bitching and moaning and rabble raising is not going to get er done!!! CHANGE THE LAWS, vote in people who will help change the laws on who takes care of public lands and do not advocate violence because as history shows violence BEGETS violence. YOU Kathyet trying to turn the issue around on me just because I am not losing it like so many are and searching for facts of the matter makes me wonder what your agenda is.....

Different voices raise other issues. This addresses the Legal Footing clause for Statehood.

Sunday, 13 April 2014 22:40

Bundy's Case: Feds Do Not Own the Land Where His Cattle Graze

Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.


The standoff in the Nevada desert seems to have cooled a little by the federal government’s decision to return over 100 head of cattle to rancher Cliven Bundy.

A deal was reportedly struck between Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) requiring that the federal agency release Bundy’s livestock that was reportedly seized because of the rancher’s refusal to pay fees to the federal government for grazing his cattle on land that he has preemptive rights to, and that, he insists, is the property of the sovereign state of Nevada.

According to a story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “the BLM decided to halt the roundup, fearing for the safety of its agents and the public.”

In a statement released Saturday and quoted by the newspaper, recently confirmed BLM Director Neil Kornze, a former senior adviser to Senator Harry Reid, said, “Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public.”

The newspaper also reports that Bundy was pleased with the agreement. He reportedly spoke to supporters gathered near his home in Bunkerville, Nevada, telling them, “Good morning America! Good morning world! Isn’t it a beautiful day in Bunkerville?”
The Review-Journal story seems to suggest that the federal government stood down because of citizen militia forming and threatening to forcibly free Bundy’s cattle. But this does not mean that the federal government has conceded. It is more likely that the feds will do as they have done in so many other cases, and try to use the federal courts to do what armed BLM agents were ordered not to do.

Perhaps in the legal assault it is likely to launch on Bundy's rights, the federal government will be forced to retreat there, too, as it was last year in the case of another Nevada rancher, E. Wayne Hage, where a federal judge ruled in favor of the rancher's property rights and against the BLM's attempted abuses of power.

Anti-Federalist Foresight

Such usurpations and wholesale efforts to reduce to rubble the concept of state sovereignty were not unknown to our Founding Fathers. And so it is not surprising that many, including this author, have quoted The Federalist Papers in support of state sovereignty, and in support of Cliven Bundy’s position that it was the federal government and not his cattle that trespassed on the land where his cattle grazed. In fact, Bundy argues, the public land in question does not belong to the federal government but to the sovereign state of Nevada. I will write a bit more about this in a minute. First, regarding the federal government’s efforts to annihilate state sovereignty, the group of Founding Fathers known as Anti-Federalists seemed to see clearly into the future — though it is important to keep in mind that these efforts have been helped along by changes to the Constitution such as the direct election of U.S. senators (making the senators no longer beholden to the state legislatures) as well as the growth of extra-constitutional government.

On June 5, 1788, Patrick Henry rose for the third time and addressed the body of 168 delegates gathered in the Richmond Theatre in Richmond, Virginia to debate ratification of the newly proposed Constitution. In all, Henry delivered 24 discourses blasting away at what he called the most “objectionable parts” of the Constitution.

Remarkably, on that hot June afternoon, the target of Henry’s unparalleled oratory assault was the very scenario — citizens arming to defend against federal seizure of land located within state territory — that is the crux of the Bundy versus BLM showdown.

To read Henry’s powerful speech is to appreciate his remarkable foresight:

Oh, sir! we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? You read of a riot act in a country which is called one of the freest in the world, where a few neighbors can not assemble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America.

A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment? In what situation are we to be? The clause before you gives a power of direct taxation, unbounded and unlimited — an exclusive power of legislation, in all cases whatsoever, for ten miles square, and over all places purchased for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, etc. What resistance could be made? The attempt would be madness. You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies; their garrisons will naturally be the strongest places in the country.

Your militia is given up to Congress also, in another part of this plan; they will therefore act as they think proper; all power will be in their own possession. You can not force them to receive their punishment: of what service would militia be to you, when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the State? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not furnish them.

Old and New on Equal Footing

Finally, there is the constitutional issue of whether states, in forming the Constitution, gave the federal government power to own land.

In the decision handed down by the Supreme Court in the case of Escanaba Co. v. City of Chicago, 107 U.S. 678, 689 (1883), an important constitutionally based concept known as the “equal footing doctrine” was described as “Equality of constitutional right and power is the condition of all the States of the Union, old and new.”

Basically, this principle requires that any state added to the union do so on equal footing with the 13 original states. As reported by the legal website Justia, “Since the admission of Tennessee in 1796, Congress has included in each State’s act of admission a clause providing that the State enters the Union ‘on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever.’”

An issue very similar to that in Cliven Bundy’s situation was at the heart of a Supreme Court case of Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, decided in 1845. Justia provides a short, helpful summary of the events:

Pollard’s Lessee involved conflicting claims by the United States and Alabama of ownership of certain partially inundated lands on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama. The enabling act for Alabama had contained both a declaration of equal footing and a reservation to the United States of these lands.

Rather than an issue of mere land ownership, the Court saw the question as one concerning sovereignty and jurisdiction of the States. Inasmuch as the original States retained sovereignty and jurisdiction over the navigable waters and the soil beneath them within their boundaries, retention by the United States of either title to or jurisdiction over common lands in the new States would bring those States into the Union on less than an equal footing with the original States.

This, the Court would not permit.

“Alabama is, therefore, entitled to the sovereignty and jurisdiction over all the territory within her limits, subject to the common law, to the same extent that Georgia possessed it, before she ceded it to the United States.

To maintain any other doctrine, is to deny that Alabama has been admitted into the union on an equal footing with the original states, the constitution, laws, and compact, to the contrary notwithstanding....

[T]o Alabama belong the navigable waters and soils under them, in controversy in this case, subject to the rights surrendered by the Constitution to the United States; and no compact that might be made between her and the United States could diminish or enlarge these rights.” [Emphasis added.]

So, regardless of the BLM’s — and by extension, the Obama administration’s — insistence that Nevada’s land was ceded to the federal government when Nevada became a state in 1864, the Constitution, common law, and relevant Supreme Court rulings have found otherwise.

The bottom line, then, is that Nevada owns the land where Cliven Bundy’s cattle fed, and Bundy — who has preemptive rights for his cattle to feed there — has faithfully and fully paid that landlord the rent he owed it.
(Please read this author’s previous analysis of a similar federal land grab in Utah.)


http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...s-cattle-graze

Who owns what???? He said ....she said....and every publication says something else....it needs to hashed out in court and then they need to post the deed to who owns this land....Please someone post a deed.....lets have some proof.....an exact deed of who owns the land where Bundy paid grazing fees and then stopped. Please if someone has the court verified legal document....link to it or post it here. FACTS would be nice.

Originally Posted by kathyet2

It is amazing to me that you can make a sticky out of this. Guess your posts can't stand on their own merit...Hmmm Kind of like the government works, force fed..

It does seem strange to make a sticky out of any non-immigration issue on this site. It seems like stickies should be the top immigration/illegal alien issues. IMO

This is who currently holds title to the land.

As this court previously ruled in United States v. Bundy,Case No. CV-S-98-531-JBR (RJJ) (D. Nev. Nov. 4, 199 0 (D. Nev. Nov. 4, 199 0 “the public lands in Nevada are the property of the


United States because the United States has held title to those public lands since 1848, when
Mexico ceded the land to the United States.”

http://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-co...ndy-7-9-13.pdf

It looks as though this has been a volatile issue for years and an unequal one. I remembered seeing this and finally found it. It appears that the powers that be in the State of Nevada have been trying to resolve this legally and recently.

I think the overpowering and militaristic tactics of the BLM is probably what set people off.

Nevada follows Utah in exploring transfer of public lands

Written by Mori Kessler on
June 6, 2013 in Government, Nation/World, News

ST. GEORGE – Gov. Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 227 into Nevada law Tuesday, approving the creation of the Nevada Land Management Task Force. The signing of AB 227 makes Nevada the fifth state to look into the movement initiated by Utah lawmakers that urges the federal government to transfer management of public lands over to state control.

In a press release issued by the American Lands Council, Nevada Assemblyman John Ellison, the primary sponsor of AB 227, said, “Gov. Sandoval and our state legislature have taken the first step in fulfilling our responsibility to our children and for the future of our state in making congress honor the same promise to Nevada that it made and kept with Hawaii and all other states east of Colorado.”
The “promise” that Ellison refers to is what is referred to as a state’s “enabling act,” which is basically a statehood contract. When a state joins the country, part of its lands are held under federal jurisdiction – which land transfer proponents argue was only meant to be a temporary arrangement. While lands management was transferred to many states that lie east of Colorado, in the west this did not come about.

On March 23, 2012, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law House Bill 148, known as The Transfer of Public Lands Act. HB 148 was spearheaded by Rep. Ken Ivory and demands the federal government transfer control of the public lands to the state by the end of 2014.

Public lands currently cover an estimated 70 percent of Utah, and over 81 percent of Nevada.

Like the Utah bill, Nevada’s AB 227 does not include national parks and other lands that have a similarly protected status in the proposed transfer. Public lands currently cover an estimated 70 percent of Utah, and over 81 percent of Nevada.

It has also been argued by public land transfer advocates that putting the lands back under state control will help create jobs, grow local and state economies, and help better fund education. This would be accomplished by the states opening up previously locked-out areas where oil, natural gas, and other natural resources can be accessed and harvested for use. Taxes collected from the public use of those lands would also provide additional funding to state educational spending.

Currently, the federal government provides “Payment in Lieu of Taxes,” or “PILT” monies, to the states as a substitute for these funds. These funds are given to the state which then distributes them across the state to the counties and school districts.

Previously, Washington County Commissioner Alan Gardner told St. George News that money derived from the use of public lands would be many times more than what the county and school district presently receives via PILT funds.
“There’s so much revenue potential out there,” Gardner said.


Assembly Bill 227 as Alloted
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/7...B/AB227_EN.pdf
Related:

• Public lands transfer resolution moving through Washington County
• New Mexico legislator proposed house bill similar to Utah’s Public Lands Transfer Act
• ‘Where’s the line? Ivory’s crusade to return public lands to the states
• Lee responds to Salazar’s comments on Utah lands
• Gov. Herbert signs public lands transfer act

http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/arc.../#.U068slWwIl9

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

It does seem strange to make a sticky out of any non-immigration issue on this site. It seems like stickies should be the top immigration/illegal alien issues. IMO

This sticky is not staying here forever and there have other stickies is Gen Discussion in the past that were not directly immigration related, if William wants this sticky taken down or moved, he can do it.

This has been an active Topic in General Discussion for several days. I personally think that a sticky as a way to consolidate the conversation is a good idea.

Thanks NM. I agree.

ST. GEORGE – Gov. Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 227 into Nevada law Tuesday, approving the creation of the Nevada Land Management Task Force. The signing of AB 227 makes Nevada the fifth state to look into the movement initiated by Utah lawmakers that urges the federal government to transfer management of public lands over to state control.

Excellent this is exactly what needs to be done....change the law, get the land under the control of the states,not the federal government. Focus on changing the laws.