Just a reminder. Federal ownership of most of the lands within Nevadas borders finds its origin in the states 1864 enabling act. While Congress declared at the outset of that act that Nevada shall be admitted into the Union upon an equal footing with the original states, in all respects whatsoever, it then placed several conditions on Nevadas statehood to which the original states were never subject. Chief among these conditions was the requirement that Nevadans forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the states borders, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States.When lawmakers passed the 1979 legislation rebuking the federal government for its stranglehold on Silver State lands, they proclaimed this condition of statehood unconstitutional, citing a U.S. Supreme Court case in which a nearly identical provision within Alabamas enabling act had been declared unconstitutional. In Pollard v. Hagan (1845), the high court decided that the United States never held any municipal sovereignty, jurisdiction, or right of soil in and to the territory of which Alabama or any of the new states were formed; except for temporary purposes. As soon as new states were formed, said the Court, the power of the United States over these lands as property was to cease.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 01:47:48 +0000
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