It led to a standoff pitting far-right paramilitaries brandishing semiautomatic rifles against law enforcement officers that ended with the BLM backing off its effort to hold Bundy to account.
Bundy’s victory against the BLM enlivened the so-called “land transfer movement,” a faction of radicals who believe, contrary to established law, that states have a constitutional right to transfer federal lands within their boundaries to state and ultimately private control.
In the years since, this vocal and well-armed minority has extended its influence in the highest echelons of the Republican Party. With national politicians like Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee leading the charge, efforts to privatize federal land are being pushed in state legislatures across the West.
Nowhere is this more true than here in Arizona.
GOP lawmakers want our public lands
Last month, the Arizona House passed a package of nine bills and memorials that reflect the most radical positions of the land transfer movement.
One of these, HCM 2005, a memorial sponsored by Rep. Austin Smith with the support of 22 of his fellow GOP lawmakers, argues that “the United States Congress should immediately dispose of the public lands lying within the State of Arizona and other Western 23 States directly to those states.”
Last week, the Arizona Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Energy and Water, passed two of these memorials on party-line votes.
HCM 2007 urges President Biden to disestablish Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, a monument he created in collaboration with local tribal nations, with the authority vested in him by the Antiquities Act.
As if this wasn’t enough, HCM 2008 asks Congress to repeal the Antiquities Act itself.
The 1906 legislation, which was signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, was used by Roosevelt to protect some of Arizona’s most beloved heritage sites, including Montezuma’s Castle National Monument.
ALEC is largely behind this effort
Polling suggests that our state’s newest national monument is supported by a 6-to-1 majority of Arizonans.
Time and again, voters across the American West have confirmed their overwhelming and bipartisan support for protecting federal lands from development and environmental despoliation. Public lands are the cornerstone of Arizona’s multibillion-dollar outdoor recreation industry.
Why, then, are Republican lawmakers rejecting this rare site of bipartisan consensus to undertake an assault on our state’s public lands heritage?
This land is our land: Not lawmakers’
To answer this question, voters need to follow the money.
While the Bundy family may be the populist public face of the land transfer movement, in the years leading up to Bunkerville, the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) threw their substantial weight behind the land transfer movement, and they haven’t let up since.
ALEC wants to orchestrate a privatization of public lands that would be an incalculable loss for the American people but an unparalleled windfall for multinational corporations.
Arizona voters must hold them accountable
This organization, known for the lavish and secretive parties it throws for friendly lawmakers, has an especially extensive network within the Arizona GOP.
It has provided legislators with dozens of model bills and resolutions promoting the land transfer agenda, including one that tracks quite closely to the language of HCM 2005.
In arguing for the liquidation of Arizona’s public lands, land transfer advocates are talking a lot about our state’s freedom in the face of outside interests.
“This Republican caucus defends Arizona sovereignty!” Rep. Smith roared in arguing for HCM 2005.
The sovereignty of our state, however, does not reside with lawmakers, but with the people of Arizona.
Whether hikers or hunters, anglers or ultramarathoners, Arizonans understand that our federally managed public lands are central to what makes life in our state great.
If lawmakers choose to stand with scofflaws like Cliven Bundy and the out-of-state corporate forces who support his radical movement, they will be called to account by Arizona voters.
Alex Trimble Young is an associate teaching professor at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University and a board member of the Arizona Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. His views are his own. Reach him at alex.t.young@asu.edu.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Public lands are for all of us, not just a select few in Arizona