Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Bundy’s back: Bunkerville rancher has new strategy in fight against BLM

Bundy

AP Photo/The Reno Gazette-Journal, Jason Bean

Cliven Bundy, center, arrives at the Nevada State Legislature building to rally behind a bill seeking to reclaim land from the federal government Tuesday, March 31, 2015, in Carson City, Nev. Bundy garnered national attention a year ago when he and armed supporters engaged in a showdown with federal authorities.

CARSON CITY — Cliven Bundy is sitting alone. But only for a moment.

The breakfast nook of the Holiday Inn Express is teeming with acolytes and family members unloading boxes of t-shirts, protest signs and bumper stickers.

Bundy is reading at a table, preparing for the latest chapter in his decades-long battle against the federal government’s control of his beloved Silver State.

An hour later he is cursing the federal government among a crowd of a supporters who have traveled to Carson City from as far as Las Vegas, Arizona, California and Utah.

The Bunkerville rancher paraded to the Legislature Tuesday, bringing with him a charter bus full of disciples and an incendiary debate on the state and federal constitutions. The militancy associated with Bunkerville — armed militiamen with their guns trained on federal agents — has faded into a new form of activism.

The icon

A year ago, no one knew Bundy’s name.

Now he has the backing of state legislators, a worldwide audience and even a full-time bodyguard.

He and his supporters have started a grassroots campaign replete with mailers, robocalls and polls. They even traded their AR-15s for legislation.

Bundy and his cadre mobilized to Carson City in support of a Republican-backed bill, AB 408, which declares a swath of federal land in Nevada the “common property of the citizens of the state.” It prohibits the federal government from claiming water rights and owning any land in the state unless it’s for a military operation or approved by the Legislature.

The Legislative Counsel Bureau has deemed the bill unconstitutional. But that’s not stopping some on the far-right. Republican lawmakers in Nevada and other Western states — Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Arizona, among others — are using state capitals as launching pads to protest the actions of federal land management agencies.

They hope to one day have the courts rule on the legality of federal land ownership in the West. Five other Western states are at least 30 percent federal land; Nevada is 87 percent.

Assemblywoman Michele Fiore is sponsoring the bill. She and a panel of lawmakers heard more than three hours of testimony on it Tuesday.

The BLM

Bundy has protested the Bureau of Land Management for almost three decades, claiming that as a citizen of Nevada he is entitled to live and work on the ranch for free. The BLM says Bundy owes more than $1 million in grazing fees.

Federal agents tried to take his cattle as restitution. But their efforts almost turned bloody at last year's standoff. Now they are waiting for the FBI and U.S. Justice Department to act.

The 69-year-old rancher says he is just “trying to bring people’s rights back.”

“People are tired of federal overreach,” he said.

Frustration with the federal government is a longstanding talking point on the far-right. Bundy added fuel to that fire and rekindled mainstream interest in federal land ownership to its highest level in three decades.

Since last April, Bundy has basked in the Republican limelight. He has done interviews with reporters from China, Australia, South Africa, France, Germany and other states. There are at least four documentaries in the works about him, Bundy said.

He's also traveled around the country to speak at Tea Party events and cattlemen associations.

“The Democrats don’t invite us,” Bundy’s son, Ryan, said.

His disciples

Bundy says his supporters aren’t just gun-toting cowboys.

“They come from all walks of life,” he said.

In the breakfast nook, a man in khakis, a button-down shirt and no cowboy hat looked out of place. His wife, dressed in a blouse and red jacket, gave the same appearance.

The man was Charles Horne, former mayor of Mesquite.

He’s known Bundy for decades and wrote a self-published book on public lands and the Constitution. He’s unabashed about not being a cowboy.

“There’s no doo doo on my boots,” he said with a laugh.

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