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Human
Events
Expert's
take: Land seizure and the Constitution
By:
Teresa Mull
4/24/2014
A
number of complexities surround the government vs. Cliven Bundy
standoff case in Nevada. Some say the feds acted legally, others that
they are infringing upon private property and Constitutional rights.
Either way, the situation stimulated a national discussion: What are
the limits of the federal government and its agencies?
Byron
Schlomach, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at
the Goldwater Institute, sets us straight:
In
reference to the Bundy case and the new report that the Bureau of
Land Management is looking to seize about 90,000 acres of land to be
made public in Texas, what exactly is the purpose of the BLM, and
what are its limits? How much power does the BLM have, and what can
they do with it?
The
Bureau of Land Management is the federal government’s property
manager. As such, it asserts the federal government’s ownership
rights. The BLM can do anything with federal land that any private
landowner can do with his or her own land, including keeping other
people off of that land. The problem is that the land the BLM owns is
“everybody’s” since it is “publicly owned.” This means we
end up fighting over the best way to use the land and the losers in
the hurly-burly of political infighting have lately been past
winners, so they feel particularly wronged. The political process,
which is very frustrating, sometimes corrupt, and which always
produces exultant winners and embittered losers who feel their rights
have been ignored or confiscated, does not necessarily lead to unity
and good feelings.
In
the Bundy situation, political wrangling by environmentalists has led
the BLM to end longstanding leases with people like cattle ranchers.
Like any landlord, the federal government has the right not to renew
leases when they expire, to collect agreed lease payments, and to
evict someone who refuses to pay rent. Most landlords, though, rent
to those who best take care of the property and who pay the highest
rents. The federal government can afford not to behave so rationally
if a majority or a vocal majority wishes it so. This is the problem
so many are having with current BLM policy. The BLM is arguably not
making best use of federal lands because of the political
machinations of environmentalists.
The
Texas situation is more insidious. The BLM has always had the right
to assert federal ownership and works to determine property
boundaries. However, in the Texas case, the BLM essentially ignored
the federal government’s potential claims for a very long time.
Private land use and ownership boundaries have long since been
established. For the BLM to come back now and confiscate land would
be immoral. Instead, the property rights of those who put property to
good use should be recognized. The government and even George
Washington lost land to “squatters” who, finding no identifiable
boundary markers, appropriated land for themselves. Courts then
determined that ownership went to those who did something with the
property, not to those who did nothing with it, even if their claim
was legitimate on paper.
What
rights do citizens have against the BLM? We have all heard stories of
the government seizing property from private citizens, paying them a
fair price for it, but basically saying, ‘we want to build a
highway through your farm, you have 90 days to vacate,’ or
something to that effect. Is this Constitutional? What would the
Founders say?
The
BLM is essentially the owner of federal property. Americans have no
individual rights against it. If the landlord’s mind is made up to
keep us off his property, we cannot and should not override him. Our
only option is to attempt to peacefully change his mind. In the case
of the BLM, the mind we have to change is the collective mind of
Congress, which then has to change the laws that serve as the basis
to change how federal lands have been historically administered…
Read
the rest of the article at Human Events
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