Posted on 03/10/2010 11:52:14 AM PST by Willie Green
Utah lawmakers angry over federal ownership of land in the state approved the use of eminent domain Tuesday to take some of the most valuable parcels.
The goal is to spark a U.S. Supreme Court battle that legislators' own attorneys acknowledge has little chance of success.
But Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and other Republicans say the case is still worth fighting because if the state wins it could reap millions of dollars for state schools each year.
More than 60 percent of Utah is owned by the U.S. government, and policy makers here have long complained that federal ownership hinders their ability to generate tax revenue and adequately fund public schools.
Utah spends less per student than any other state and has the nation's largest class sizes.
"Access to these lands will unlock billions of dollars for our kids," said Sen. Dan Liljenquist, R-Bountiful. "This is our own land that we can't get access to because of an unreasonable federal government."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
Good news, glad to see someone standing up to them. Can’t wait to see the FedGov’s reaction.
They asked for the Feds to provide documentation showing where they got the authority. ...and they couldn't do it, IIRC.
Anyone have more info on that, or am I imagining things?
Good it stand up to the Feds. Bad to push more “underfunded public schools” propaganda. Utah school districts spend more on administrative staff than teachers.
OVERDUE!
Once we get state legislators that have a pair, we can then work on the fed to abolish the EPA and Dept of the Interior.
Enough! of federal dithering in the states.
Then work on the entirety of the IRS and the DEA.
Those who wrote our Constitution never envisioned that the federal government they created would actually steal from the states like this is.
The states have the sovereign rights, not the feds.
Article 1, section 8 next to the last paragraph lays out the feds authority vis a vis land grabbing. They have, as always, badly overstepped their authority.
Ironically, the Kelo decision may be the precedent.
Ping
Great move for Utah and damn glad to read you’re posts back on FR.
Thank-you!
Are these the lands that the b*****d Clinton took by executive order as he was leaving office? His last fU to conservatives?
HUMMMM, like the sound of this one.
The national monument with the sulfur free coal is, yes. That was tied to the Riady case, with an Indonesian business man funnelling money to Clinton’s campaign - and while the federal government mandates sulfur free coal use, locks up the largest undeveloped deposit in the United States in a no-mining national “monument”.
And while you are at it the BATF.....Declare sovereignty and keep all your money at home. Just think what the states could be if they cut the tax rates and kept all the money in the states...............
Utah should win.
I would hope.
And WTF does the fed gubmint do with their trillions of acres of land? Anything? Does it just sit there and is it unpopulated or not farmed or used for grazing, or anything? We know for sure that pantywaist liberals who have never been outside their cities or condos or mansions, have never even stepped foot in any natural wild setting.
Whoohoo Utah!
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