As long as the federal government keeps the land within her borders locked up and out of control by her own citizens, I don’t see how Nevada is even legally a state within the union. It’s been a century and a half since statehood. There’s no reason whatsoever to have the feds ruling over Nevada’s land. Or the land in any other of the western states. That’s not the way it was done in the other states.
But I see no constitutional justification for the feds holding on to that property. As far as I’m concerned Nevada has a greater constitutional right to that land than the feds.
Jim, and this goes for all the Western States. I noted that a rep from California was conspicuously absent from the recent meeting in Salt Lake City to discuss how to go about getting these lands returned to their respective states, despite the fact that the Feds “own” nearly 50% out our state as well. Someone needs to make this a Constitutional issue since the rest of the states have only near zero to about 5% of their state’s lands under federal control. Good for you and FR to be raising this issue. It’s the crux of what Cliven Bundy is trying to accomplish.