Utah politicians seek to ignore the U.S. Constitution by claiming 18.5 million acres of your federal public land – most of it administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Utahans have often been cantankerous, but this latest piece of legislative legerdemain is especially threatening.
Historically, Utah’s relationship to the rest of the United States has been complicated. With the arrival of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into the Great Basin in 1847, Brigham Young sought to extend a church-state empire throughout the intermountain West. The church’s support of polygamy, Utah’s “peculiar institution,” fueled intense opposition throughout the rest of the United States. A decade later the Utah War of 1857-1858 is now considered to be the nation’s largest and most costly military exercise sandwiched between the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the Civil War (1860-1865). Hostilities ended, and in 1890 the LDS church said there would be no new plural marriages. With that announcement, Utah territory could move toward statehood, which occurred in 1896. Here’s where the U.S. Constitution comes in.
Our bedrock legal document, the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1789, includes Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2, which says Congress has the “Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory and other Property belonging to the United States.” After a series of ordinances set legal precedent, new states would be admitted to the Union after first being organized as territories. “In preserving the national government’s broad authority over public lands as new states were admitted, the framers made it very difficult for new states to argue they had a claim to public lands within their borders simply by virtue of their admission to the union,” says legal scholar and historian John Leshy in his book “Our Common Ground.”
Then there’s the Utah Constitution itself. Time for a history lesson. Utah’s 21st-century politicians must read Article III of their own Utah State Constitution ratified Nov. 5, 1895 – a requirement of statehood in 1896. Article III explicitly says, “The people of this state do affirm and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated lands lying within the boundaries hereof.”
Acreage that had not been claimed under the Homestead Act of 1862 or other laws remained as public land, though new states in the West also received thousands of acres to support education. Public land was routinely used and abused with overgrazing by hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle destroying native grasses, causing erosion and bringing in invasive plants and weeds. In 1924, Interior Secretary Hubert Work said bluntly, “unauthorized and unrestricted grazing on the public domain is, I believe, destroying it.”
The Presidential administration of Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) tried to give the public domain back to the states. Western politicians refused. One of the loudest voices against such a transfer was, ironically, the governor of Utah.
“The federal government is incapable of the adequate administration of such matters which require so large a measure of local understanding,” Hoover said. He established the nation’s third Public Lands Commission, which would issue its report in 1931 as the Great Depression deepened. To the surprise of Hoover, western politicians said no. They didn’t want all those wasted acres.
Utah’s governor George Henry Dern proclaimed: “The states already own, in their school land grants, millions of acres of this kind of land, which they can neither sell nor lease, and which is yielding no income. Why should they want more of this precious heritage of desert?” Dern began his Congressional testimony saying, “Comes now the Government of the United States, tentatively offering us what looks at a distance like a fine, large horse. As we get closer, we have some difficulty discerning whether it was actually a fine, large horse, or a fine, large white elephant.”
Like other western politicians, Dern did not want Hoover’s “gift” of federal public lands, the public domain, without mineral rights. They wanted the land restored or reclaimed after decades of overgrazing and rangeland abuse. Westerners worried about losing federal trappers who were busy killing bears, wolves, lynx, bobcats and even eagles, which occasionally preyed on livestock. Politicians feared the loss of federal funds for water projects. In Nevada, livestock associations grudgingly admitted preference for federal over state control and the Idaho Wool Growers Association feared a loss of free forage because, unlike U.S. Forest Service lands, public domain lands had no rules or regulations. Sen. William Borah of Idaho jeered at receiving a gift of federal lands “on which a jack rabbit could hardly live.”
Historian Roy M. Robbins summarized: “When the bill embracing the commission’s proposals was introduced, it was found that not only was the East opposed to it, but also much of the West, including the powerful livestock association interests.” After World War II, ranchers changed their minds. Now they wanted public domain lands, primarily managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which was established in 1946. They demanded those lands for pennies on the acre. Sportsmen’s groups and others rallied to stop such a giveaway.
Now 80 years later, a few western states have resumed their campaign to acquire federal lands with Utah at the forefront. In August 2024, the state of Utah filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court level to seize BLM lands within the state’s borders.
“Those same-ol’ greedy Utah politicians are at it again, putting a fresh spin on their same-ol’ effort to take our public lands – to the tune of 18.5 million acres of BLM land – for the benefit of themselves and their wealthy buddies,” says Zack Williams, editor of Backcountry Journal. “Their campaign is all smoke and mirrors, hiding their intentions to reap profit from our shared resource in any and every way conceivable – at a tremendous cost to the rest of us. With $10 million in campaign money, and a $14 million lawsuit backing them, Utah officials are probably wondering who could possibly stand in their way.”
Williams answers, “WE are,” on behalf of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. He is right. Public lands unite us and so another fight for the West begins. Along the Wasatch Front large billboards proclaim, “Stand for the Land: Let Utah Manage Utah Land” with a state email address of StandForOurLand.utah.gov. The state of Utah wants to manage federal BLM lands without, of course, paying for uranium mine cleanups, forest fires, or landscape restoration. Those of us who love the West and our federal public lands must defend them.
“MAGA officials will pile onto the state’s ultimate goal of seizing public lands outright, joining Utah’s parochial leaders who have played the land grab game for decades. This time (President) Trump’s complicity makes it all the more dangerous,” says Scott Groene for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. And what will Utah’s state government do with federal lands? Lease them for oil and gas and uranium development or sell them if the price is right and if the state’s budget needs balancing. Behind the scenes, moneyed interests are lining up to acquire BLM lands near hot spots of tourism like Moab, St. George, Cedar City and Kanab. The canyon country that no one wanted now everyone wants.
The annual value of outdoor recreation in Utah is about $9.5 billion and almost all of that money is generated from public lands. A new fight for the West has begun. It’s time to crawl out of that sleeping bag, leave your tent or camper, put away your climbing ropes and hiking boots, and protect what is yours.
Hopefully, the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, who have said time and time again that they are strict constitutionalists adhering to the original Constitution, will ignore this direct challenge to the Constitution itself. Historically, territories became states and gave up claims to unallotted lands. In the next few years, we’ll find out if the U.S. Constitution really does represent the law of the land. Meanwhile, here’s a message for those shortsighted politicians craving corporate campaign contributions who haven’t even read their own state Constitutions: Leave Public Lands in Public Hands.
Andrew Gulliford is an award-winning author and editor and a professor of history at Fort Lewis College. He can be reached at gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu.
