Protip for Sagebrush rebels: This land was never yours
The “Sagebrush Rebellion” militants who seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January repeatedly called for the “return” of federal lands to the states.
As extreme as their action was, the concept of “returning” national land to state control has also turned up in the news elsewhere. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz aired a 30-second ad ahead of the recent Nevada Republican caucuses promising to “return full control of Nevada’s lands to its rightful owners, its citizens.” The Utah legislature is considering a bill setting up a planning and management process for the 31 million acres of federal land that the bill’s sponsor hopes will someday be handed over to that state.
A Salt Lake Tribune editorial recently said the legislation “might as well be titled the Utah Public Lands Fairies and Unicorns Act for all the chances it has of actually setting the rules for any territory,” adding, “No court will ever order it. No Congress will ever approve it. No president will ever stand for it.”
It’s important to understand one reason it’s unlikely the 353 million acres of national lands in the West will ever be “returned” to the states: Those states never owned the land in the first place.
Most of the Western states agreed as a condition of statehood that they would “forever disclaim all right and title” to Indian lands and undistributed federal land. Congress repeatedly insisted on that condition — and for good reason.
As settlers moved across the Appalachians in the late 18th century, the original 13 colonies laid competing claims to what was then a rather expansive definition of “the West.” A key compromise in putting a new nation together was that the states would give up their claims and the federal government would manage the distribution of land to new states and individuals. The federal government’s Northwest Ordinances of the 1780s opened Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin for settlement. But there were repeated instances of rigged sales of state lands to well-connected speculators who made a killing on resales.
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http://crosscut.com/2016/03/sagebrush-rebellion-pursues-an-imaginary-past/
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This may come up in my state's next legislative session. I'm going to research this. I would love to hand out copies of my State Enabling Act to the sub-committee and it explain it to them.
Thank you!
