This Land Is Idaho’s, Group Says Speakers Want State Control Of All Federal Lands In Idaho
People attending a rally for the Idaho Sovereignty Association represented a broad spectrum of interests, but they had one thing in common - they don’t like the federal government.
About 150 stood for a couple of hours in a hot Saturday sun at the Statehouse a week ago to hear a parade of speakers lambast the federal government and urge taking control of federal land in Idaho.
That would be no small undertaking, since more than 34 million of the state’s 53 million acres are federally owned. Former Gov. Cecil Andrus made that point, warning it would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year to manage the land.
Yet Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa joined others in encouraging people to sign petitions to Gov. Phil Batt and other state officials, calling on them to lay claim to all that federal land.
They argue that the “equal footing” section of the Idaho Admission Bill, the legislation that declared statehood in 1890, made Idaho the equal of the original 13 states.
Since the federal government didn’t take control of land in the original states, it had no authority to do so in Idaho, the argument goes.
But the courts have ruled otherwise, and if Idaho officials march into the Federal Building in Boise and demand ownership, it could make whole battalions of lawyers rich fighting the legal battles that would follow.
Dick Clark, a commissioner in Nye County in northern Nevada, stirred the crowd with his claim that the federal government has no authority to operate such agencies as the Forest Service. His county has laid claim to federal lands, although it hasn’t gotten very far with it.
At one point, Clark claimed that the only part of his county where the federal government has any jurisdiction is the Post Office at Tonopah.
Waving a copy of the U.S. Constitution, he said, “They are not going to govern here on the people’s lands.”
But substituting action for rhetoric would be a big step for Idaho officials, and there’s no indication Batt or anyone else would be willing to take it.
Nevertheless, the Idaho Sovereignty Association offered many a forum for voicing complaints about government. People at the rally carried signs or T-shirts saying, “Where Would America Be If Clinton Was Aborted?” and “Politically Incorrect and Proud of It” and “Enforce the 10th Amendment.”
Cenarrusa is the state official perhaps most closely identified with the movement. As a member of the state Land Board that administers 2.5 million acres of state endowment land, he equates land with wealth and believes the state would be better off if it controlled it all.
But Cenarrusa’s fervor for what has been called the new Sagebrush Rebellion appears to be cooling at about the same pace that iconoclastic anti-government leaders move away from the American mainstream.
Where once he would have unabashedly endorsed state takeover of federal range and forest, Cenarrusa told the crowd the issue would be decided in the courts. He urged “peaceful dialogue” as the best way to resolve problems.