Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Cliven Bundy speaks to Independent American Party of Nevada

Bundy Metro Press

L.E. Baskow

Cliven Bundy answers a few more questions following a press conference in front of Metro Police Headquarters on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018.

SPARKS — Southern Nevada rancher and state's rights activist Cliven Bundy is bringing his brand of politics to a gathering of like-minded conservative libertarians in Northern Nevada.

Bundy, 71, was set to give the keynote speech Friday night at the Independent American Party of Nevada's state convention in Sparks where many consider him a hero. He spent nearly 23 months in prison before a federal judge in Las Vegas dismissed a criminal case last month against him and two of his sons stemming from an armed standoff with government agents at his Bunkerville ranch in 2014.

Joel Hansen, chairman of the Independent American Party of Nevada, said before the speech that Bundy's story is one of "tremendous courage and faith" standing up against federal "corruption and tyranny."

The party, which focuses on state and property rights, includes many disaffected, former Republicans. It now has 65,000 active registered voters in Nevada — up from about 15,000 in 2002. It's currently the third largest political party in Nevada, making up about 4.5 percent of the active voters.

Shortly after his release from prison last month, Bundy and his son, Ryan, appeared at a "Freedom and Property" rally in Montana sponsored by the Coalition of Western Property Owners.

Several of the Independent American Party's leaders have been involved in legal disputes with the U.S. government similar to Bundy's dating to the 1990s.

In 2001, the party staged a fundraiser to cover legal costs of a Nevada rancher, Cliff Gardner, whose cattle were seized for failing to pay grazing fees on national forest land in northeast Nevada. Its 2002 Nevada gubernatorial candidate, David Holmgren, waged his own battle with the BLM over his cattle in central Nevada.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management began rounding up Bundy cows in April 2014 after obtaining court orders accusing Bundy for 20 years of failure to pay more than $1 million in back grazing fees and penalties to the federal government.

The ensuing standoff at the Bundy ranch 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas pitted about three dozen heavily armed federal agents guarding corrals in a dry river bed against hundreds of flag-waving protesters calling for the release of some 400 cows.

Andy Kerr, a longtime environmental activist and consultant in Oregon, is among those angered that Bundy cattle are still grazing within the boundaries of the Gold Butte National Monument President Obama designated in 2016 about 90 miles (140 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas.

"Now free of the threat of federal criminal prosecution, the Bundy boys are getting some speaking gigs to tell their story, brag about how they beat the feds and how they are continuing to do so by not paying federal grazing fees," Kerr wrote on his Public Lands Blog on Friday.

But he said there may be a silver lining for conservationists.

"'The more the Bundyites spread their bunk about the illegitimacy of the federal public lands ... the more the overwhelming majority of Americans remember they love America's public lands," Kerr said.