State Legislatures magazine/April 1980: Fierce regional sentiment; generations of history; tangled political and legal questions; new economic and social realities …
Christopher A. Wood/Washington Post/May 1995: Buildings damaged by anonymous bombers. Armed men threatening federal officials. Politicians passing local ordinances repudiating federal law.
These two quotes, separated by 15 years, fairly portray the evolution of the image of efforts to wrest control of public lands from the federal government. Nevada has been in the forefront of these efforts, which continue today with Senate Joint Resolution 1 at the 2015 Nevada Legislature.
It’s an effort that reflects an enduring notion in Nevada politics, that the small counties are the “real” Nevada and that politicians can advance by tailoring their appeal to that region. This notion has had little election success, but a good myth dies hard, and state politicians keep pandering to the small counties. And few envisioned the 2014 election, which swept Republicans more oriented to dogma than practical action, into the legislature.
The Sagebrush Rebellion
In 1976, Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which outlined new functions of the Bureau of Land Management, set federal policies on control of public lands and mining, and established multiple use, sustained yield, and environmental protection practices and policies. It also ended the practice of homesteading, which—along with benign uses—had been used to shift tribal lands to whites. More to the point, the new law made federal land holdings permanent. It was not a new idea—the original founding Atlantic coast colonies that held land had willingly turned it over to the federal government.
On the quarter-century anniversary of the act, the BLM said, “[B]ecause of the insight and vision of the people who crafted it, FLPMA provides us with the tools we need to cooperatively and creatively manage the public lands, and in the process, dispel the notion that a variety of uses and resources cannot co-exist.”
Not everyone agreed. “The legislation dashed Western hopes that the U.S. would gradually turn control of public lands over to local governments, which residents argue could do a better job of managing public land than bureaucrats stationed in Washington,” reported U.S. News & World Report.
In 1979, Nevada Assemblymember Dean Rhoads convinced his colleagues in the Nevada Legislature to launch an effort to take state control of federally held land through a lawsuit.
Rhoads is one of those very conservative Republicans—a longtime member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—who later found himself less comfortable with the Republican Party as militants, evangelicals, and social conservatives used the GOP as a vehicle for increasingly extreme public policies and accused those traditional conservatives who didn’t go along with being RINOs. In getting the Rebellion legislation through the Nevada Legislature, Rhoads listened to criticism with an open mind, accepted amendments, treated critics with respect.
Many, including some liberals who should know better than to use guilt by association, have portrayed the Sagebrush Rebellion as akin to the extremist groups like county supremacists (fired by a theory that county officials, particularly sheriffs, trump federal power) who followed later. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said in a report after the 2014 Cliven Bundy standoff, “Today’s disputes with federal authority, many long simmering, are an extension of the earlier right-wing Sagebrush Rebellion, Wise Use and ’county supremacy’ movements.”
In fact, while there were extremists on the fringes, the Rebellion was a peaceful movement motivated by issues. “The bill does not constitute a rebellion, a revolt, or a secession,” Rhoads told the Assembly on April 25, 1979, the day the Nevada Assembly voted for Assembly Bill 413. “It does constitute a constitutional challenge to the right of the federal government to unilaterally control and manage the public domain and to hold the land in perpetuity without any conversion to private ownership.” Many moderate legislators who voted for Rhoads’ bill would not have gone along otherwise.
Here's the picture the author is trying to paint: Proponents of the Sagebrush Rebellion were gentlemen, open-minded and willing to compromise, but an "evolution" has occurred and today's proponents of a lands transfer are violent, right-wing extremists.
The author makes no mention of Utah. Everyone acknowledges the current lands transfer effort began and is continuing to be led by Utah, not Nevada. So why leave them out? Because Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory and others have proposed a reasonable, well-researched program for returning these lands, just like was down for the midwestern states. Mr. Ivory and his approach don't fit the canvas strokes the author is trying to force upon the public. An interesting article though, well worth a read.
For more info see American Lands Council and Utah's Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office.
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