Do the Fed’s Really Own the Land in Nevada? Nope!

[SouthTexas]

Do the Fed’s Really Own the Land in Nevada? Nope!

 Posted on April 19, 2014 by Martin Armstrong   armstrongeconomics.com

QUESTION: Is it true that nearly 80% of Nevada is still owned by the Federal Government who then pays no tax to the State of Nevada? This seems very strange if true as a backdrop to this entire Bundy affair.

You seem to be the only person to tell the truth without getting crazy.

Thank you so much

HF

REPLY: The truth behind Nevada is of course just a quagmire of politics. Nevada was a key pawn in getting Abraham Lincoln reelected in 1864 during the middle of the Civil War. Back on March 21st, 1864, the US Congress enacted the Nevada Statehood statute that authorized the residents of Nevada Territory to elect representatives to a convention for the purpose of having Nevada join the Union. This is where we find the origin of the fight going on in Nevada that the left-wing TV commenters (pretend-journalists) today call a right-wing uprising that should be put down at all costs. The current land conflict in Nevada extends back to this event in 1864 and how the territory of Nevada became a state in order to push through a political agenda to create a majority vote. I have said numerous times, if you want the truth, just follow the money.

The “law” at the time in 1864 required that for a territory to become a state, the population had to be at least 60,000. At that time, Nevada had only about 40,000 people. So why was Nevada rushed into statehood in violation of the law of the day? When the 1864 Presidential election approached, there were special interests who were seeking to manipulate the elections to ensure Lincoln would win reelection. They needed another Republican congressional delegation that could provide additional votes for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery. Previously, the attempt failed by a very narrow margin that required two-thirds support of both houses of Congress.........

.......Republican Ronald Reagan had argued for the turnover of the control of such lands to the state and local authorities back in 1980. Clearly, the surrender of all claims to any land for statehood was illegal under the Constitution. This is no different from Russia seizing Crimea. The Supreme Court actually addressed this issue in Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. 212 (1845) when Alabama became a state in 1845. The question presented was concerning a clause where it was stated “that all navigable waters within the said State shall forever remain public highways, free to the citizens of said State, and of the United States, without any tax, duty, impost, or toll therefor imposed by said State.” The Supreme Court held that this clause was constitutional because it “conveys no more power over the navigable waters of Alabama to the Government of the United States than it possesses over the navigable waters of other States under the provisions of the Constitution.”

The Pollard decision expressed a statement of constitutional law in dictum making it very clear that the Feds have no claim over the lands in Nevada. The Supreme Court states:

The United States never held any municipal sovereignty, jurisdiction, or right of soil in and to the territory of which Alabama, or any of the new States, were formed, except for temporary purposes, and to execute the trusts created by the acts of the Virginia and Georgia legislatures, and the deeds of cession executed by them to the United States, and the trust created by the treaty of the 30th April, 1803, with the French Republic ceding Louisiana.

So in other words, once a territory becomes a state, the Fed must surrender all claims to the land as if it were still just a possession or territory.

Sorry, but to all the left-wing commentators who call Bundy a tax-cheat and an outlaw, be careful of what you speak for the Supreme Court has made it clear in 1845 that the Constitution forbids the federal rangers to be out there to begin with for the Feds could not retain ownership of the territory and simultaneously grant state sovereignty. At the very minimum, it became state land – not federal.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/armstrong_economics_blog/

[Oceander]

Nice to see someone still being so piggishly bull-headed, and cherry-picking only those few limited points that (seem to) justify his position.  Here's some of the latest and greatest on the subject; these are taken from the case of U.S. v. Gardner, 107 F.3d 1314 (9th Cir., 1996):

Courts in the United States have uniformly found that title to the land first passed to the United States through the Treaty. See, e.g., United States v. California, 436 U.S. 32, 34 n. 3, 98 S.Ct. 1662, 1663 n. 3, 56 L.Ed.2d 94 (1978) (stating that, under the Treaty, "all nongranted lands previously held by the Government of Mexico passed into the federal public domain"); Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 131, 96 S.Ct. 2062, 2066, 48 L.Ed.2d 523 (1976) (stating that a limestone cavern located in Nevada is "situated on land owned by the United States since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848").

From the same case, this is why Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan is utterly irrelevant - it deals with a completely different set of facts:

The claim by Gardners that it is the duty of the United States to hold public lands in trust for the formation of future states is founded on a case dealing with land acquired by the United States from the thirteen original states.  In that case, Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 212, 11 L.Ed. 565 (1845), the Supreme Court discussed the extent of the United States' authority over lands ceded to it from Virginia and Georgia to discharge debt incurred by those states during the Revolutionary War. The Court stated that the United States held this land in trust for the establishment of future states.  Id. 44 U.S. (3 How.) at 222.  Once those new states were established, the United States' authority over the land would cease.  Id. at 221-23.  This decision was based on the terms of the cessions of the land from Virginia and Georgia to the United States.

The bottom line, again from the Gardner case:

Thus, as the United States has held title to the unappropriated public lands in Nevada since Mexico ceded the land to the United States in 1848, the land is the property of the United States.

Game.

Set.

Match.

The government of the United States of America owns that land, lock, stock, and barrel, and Cliven Bundy is a cheat and a trespasser who wouldn't be given the time of day by any of these people if he was a black inner-city squatter trying to claim he was entitled to continue living in his apartment for free regardless of what the building owner wanted.

[Oceander]

And yeah, I am getting a little tired of this nonsense, for nonsense is what it is.  I apologize profusely to anyone here who is personally offended, I mean no offense to you specifically, but to those who are out there flogging this nonsense to people of good faith such as yourselves.

[Luis Gonzalez]

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, and in order to provide for establishment of appropriate fees for the grazing of domestic livestock on public rangelands, it is ordered as follows:

Section 1. Determination of Fees. The Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior are directed to exercise their authority, to the extent permitted by law under the various statutes they administer, to establish fees for domestic livestock grazing on the public rangelands which annually equals the $1.23 base established by the 1966 Western Livestock Grazing Survey multiplied by the result of the Forage Value Index (computed annually from data supplied by the Statistical Reporting Service) added to the Combined Index (Beef Cattle Price Index minus the Prices Paid Index) and divided by 100; provided, that the annual increase or decrease in such fee for any given year shall be limited to not more than plus or minus 25 percent of the previous year's fee, and provided further, that the fee shall not be less than $1.35 per animal unit month.

Sec. 2. Definitions. As used in this Order, the term:

(a) ``Public rangelands'' has the same meaning as in the Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978 (Public Law 95 - 514);

(b) ``Forage Value Index'' means the weighted average estimate of the annual rental charge per head per month for pasturing cattle on private rangelands in the 11 Western States (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, and California) (computed by the Statistical Reporting Service from the June Enumerative Survey) divided by $3.65 and multiplied by 100;

(c) ``Beef Cattle Price Index'' means the weighted average annual selling price for beef cattle (excluding calves) in the 11 Western States (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, and California) for November through October (computed by the Statistical Reporting Service) divided by $22.04 per hundred weight and multiplied by 100; and

(d) ``Prices Paid Index'' means the following selected components from the Statistical Reporting Service's Annual National Index of Prices Paid by Farmers for Goods and Services adjusted by the weights indicated in parentheses to reflect livestock production costs in the Western States: 1. Fuels and Energy (14.5); 2. Farm and Motor Supplies (12.0); 3. Autos and Trucks (4.5); 4. Tractors and Self-Propelled Machinery (4.5); 5. Other Machinery (12.0); 6. Building and Fencing Materials (14.5); 7. Interest (6.0); 8. Farm Wage Rates (14.0); 9. Farm Services (18.0).

Sec. 3. Any and all existing rules, practices, policies, and regulations relating to the administration of the formula for grazing fees in section 6(a) of the Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978 shall continue in full force and effect.

Sec. 4. This Order shall be effective immediately.

Ronald Reagan
The White House,
February 14, 1986.