Are The Feds' Claims On Ownership Of The West Viable? - Granite Grok

Are The Feds’ Claims On Ownership Of The West Viable?

Michael Lotfi Tenth Amendment Center
Michael Lotfi
10th Amdmt Ctr
Federal land "ownership" by state (Click-enlarge)
Federal land “ownership” by state
(Click-enlarge)
Over at BenSwann.com, Michael Lotfi, Tennessee Director for the Tenth Amendment Center analyzes the constitutional underpinnings for the Federal Government’s claims on the Western states, and finds their argument badly flawed. You can read the whole article, but here is an epic quote:

Article I, Section 8 does lay forth the possibility of federal control over some land. What land? Clause 17 defines these few exceptions.

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings– (Emphasis added).

It shouldn’t take a Persian American to do the constitutional research and reading that the goons at Harry Reid’s BLM (his guy runs it) refuse to do.

If I understand Lotfi’s article and the history correctly, all relevant Supreme Court rulings prior to Nevada’s statehood clearly limited Federal power over state lands, and rulings counter to that position did not appear until near the end of the 19th century (beginning of the Progressive era).

That being the case, and the Federal and state governments having encouraged land improvement via homesteading, Bundy has at least the rights to use the land his family worked and improved for 140 years, and most certainly a Federal bureaucracy has no rights to maintain a standing army inside a sovereign state.

I personally believe it is high time the Western states laid claim to their own lands and managed them locally. Indeed, lawmakers from several Western states met recently at a Legislative Summit on the Transfer for Public Lands

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