If the feds own the land in question, did they purchase it under the eminent domain clause of the 5th Amendment, or under the Constitution’s Clause 17 of Secton 8 of Article I? And I don’t see how Clause 17 would apply in this case.
Also, there’s possible constitutional problems if the feds held onto the land when Nevada became a state.
The federal government acquired most if not all of this land by treaty with Mexico, and have owned it ever since.
Nobody has ever been able to show me a single example of a state being given title to all public (federally owned) land within its borders. in every state, AFAIK, the US retained title and up to the Civil War made a very large chunk of its income by selling this land. After the War much of it was made available for homesteading. Even then it remained in federal title until it was homesteaded or otherwise transferred.
In this regard, at least, NV was treated pretty much as every other state was. The reason so much land is still in federal ownership is primarily because nobody wanted to buy it for most of a century.
I have no particular objection to transferring most federal land to state ownership in UT, NV, etc., though I doubt it would work out as well as the activists think. But it is historically inaccurate to say western states were treated differently from other states.
Those who don’t understand why nobody bothered to buy it apparently haven’t spent much time in the desert areas of the West. There are minerals under some of the land, and those specific areas would be worth a lot if sold. Most of the land, nada.
If Bundy actually owned and had to maintain and pay property taxes on the land he refuses to pay fees to graze on, his costs would greatly exceed his income.
BLM grazing fees are generally considerably lower than those on private land, though total costs of using federal land are much closer to par.
As I read, that NV allowed the land to be controlled by the feds. If true, then NV itself defied the constitution. That state was created in haste.
They took it from Mexico in 1848.
Why?