Rick Green [00:00:07] You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilder show. I'm Rick Green, America's constitution coach here with David Barton, America, his premier historian and Tim Barton national pastor and president of WallBuilders. And we appreciate you listening. We do want to encourage you to also visit our websites, wallbuilders.show to catch up on the radio program. If you missed any shows the last few weeks and then share it with your friends and family and then of course wallbuilder.com that's the place where you can get a lot of great resources and also make that one time or monthly contribution. Thanks to all of you. That come alongside us with the finances to help us expand the program, wallbuilders.com for that. All right, guys, we got Ken Ivory coming up a little later in the program. Actually, we're kind of, I started to say leapfrogging. That is not the right word. Springboarding, that's what, leapfrog. Did y'all ever play leapfrag as a kid? That's not what I'm looking for here. Springboarding off of a show we did a few weeks ago, we've been talking about just the crazy amount of land the feds still own and control in most of these Western states. And I think David, you had a good, it was maybe a Good News Friday where we were talking about and you were pointing that out and Ken's been in that fight for a long time. So Tim's gonna get a chance to visit with him about that. But man, can you imagine if the feds just gave up even half of the land they control right now in these Western States? 

David Barton [00:01:19] Man, if they gave up half the land they control, we could have another 13 or 14 states in the United States just out of what they could do. I think, Rick, you mentioned, we talked about this a week or two ago, but I think it's 87% of Nevada is owned by the federal government, something like 65 or 67% of Utah. I mean, they own half the plan apparently west of the Mississippi River. So think what you could get and think what the states could get. As far as taxes, if they were able to get property taxes off that, which many states have, and the feds didn't take all that income for themselves, you could start weaning the federal government down as well as increase the strength of state governments, which would be a help. 

Tim Barton [00:01:59] And on top of that, think about all the resources that are not being utilized, whether we're talking about the timber industry, or we're talking about that the other natural resources underground, whether it be gas, oil, coal, whatever it is, there is so much that could be done with the land and done to benefit people, to bring in money, to create jobs, incentives instead, so often the federal government says, no, nobody touch it, like you can go look at it, but we're not going to clean up forest which makes it more susceptible to forest fires. We're not going to harvest any of the water, although that might be beneficial, and so therefore we're going to have droughts in some of these areas. I mean, you go down the list of what the federal government has done wrong, how greatly mismanaged this land is, how poorly, strategically, thinking forward, they have not worked to do things to better the people. And again, they might say, well, we're preserving this land for parks so people come and see it and do things. This is where I feel like a lot of, a lot of good people are suckered in on some of these thoughts saying, well, we wouldn't want to lose this land where we go hiking, where we go camping, where we go hunting. And if this became state land or private land, they would take all this land away from us, which I don't think is correct at all. I think, for example, if you're in a Utah, Montana, Idaho, some of these places where the federal government owns so much land and so much of your industry does come from the natural resources, the hunting, the harvesting, the fishing, whatever it is, I think the state officials are smart enough to recognize that and there's probably a way that they can manage it and probably do an even better job because of being managed by local people where there's better accountability. But this is an area that I think does trip up a lot of, of good hearted people, your outdoorsmen, your farmers, your ranchers who have gotten so used to the federal government owning it. And therefore the, the access, the abilities that people have not recognizing. How poorly the federal government has done. And I'm saying this, some people certainly recognize this, but the federal governor so poorly mismanaged this, but we go even further because even if the federal had done a good job managing this land, which they have not, but even if they did, the bigger question remains is. Is it constitutional for the federal government to control the land in all of these states west of the Rockies to control? The majority of the land that should belong to the states. Isn't even legal or constitutional? And that's where there's also some bigger issues. So even though there's people that might have in their mind, some very valid concerns about what would happen if this was no longer federal property and federal government land, we might lose some of the access, etc. The reality is that this is not even constitutional to begin with. So let's get it back to the states and then let's have a conversation about the best way that states can utilize and manage this land and what that looks like, but the bottom line, big picture is not constitutional. And then below that, the federal government has done a terrible job. Why do we want to keep letting them do this? With that being said, one of the guys who's been such a great voice on this is Ken Ivory. One of our good friends. We've known him for many, many years. He's one of our faithful attendees at our pro-family legislative conference that we host in November. And he's someone that's been on this program many times. He is an incredible voice, actually in lots of ways. He has done some brilliant things legislatively over the years. But when it comes to the state's rights issue of land, among other things, he is one of the best voices out there on this. 

Rick Green [00:05:38] Ken Ivory from Utah, our special guest when we return on The WallBuilders Show

Tim Barton [00:06:47] This is Tim Barton joined by one of our good longtime friends, Rep Ken Ivory. Rep Ivory, thanks for being with us today. 

Rep. Ken Ivory [00:06:55] Hey Tim, it's always a good day when I can hang out with you, brother. 

Tim Barton [00:06:59] Well, we are so grateful for you. And we, every Thursday as we do our Foundations of Freedom Thursday on our radio show, our podcast, we have listeners writing questions. And every now and then we get a question. And we're like, you know who we need to talk to. We need to get Ken Ivory on here. He's the one to answer this. And so this is one of those questions. We saw it. And obviously, my dad, Rick, and I, we are not short of having an opinion. But there's not many people that we could think of that have done more work or studied more in this area than you. So I'm going to read this question. And then I would love to get your feedback on it. So the question says, I'm an avid hunter and fisherman. And I am seeing a lot of uproar about a proposed amendment to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act that would result in up to 1.5 million acres of federal land in Utah and Nevada being sold off. While I understand the concern about accessing land to hunt and fish, I always thought the Constitution did not permit the feds from owning so much public land. What is the Constitutional and founding perspective on public land. Thanks and God bless. Now, Ken, you've dealt with this topic for the decades that I've known you. So this should be easy for you, but what is the answer to this? What is the federal role in this? And is this constitutional? 

Rep. Ken Ivory [00:08:21] Yeah, you know, the short answer article one, section eight, clause 17 allows the federal government to own land if they buy it and if they have the consent of the state legislature and if it's for forts, arsenals, dockyards, other NEPO buildings. So you got to have if, if, and if, and then the constitution allows the federal government to own land within a state. Now the reason they did that because when they were having the debate, Elbridge Jerry said, now, wait a minute. If we let the federal government just own land within a state pretty soon, they'd be able to exercise undo all within a State and Tim right now in complete ignorance of that provision of the constitution, the federal government owns fully one third of all the land in the United States, 50% of all land west of the Rockies. And they face that on. Property clause not get this the federal owning and keeping the land they based on the property closet says congress have the power to dispose of and make need for rules and regulations respecting the territory of the property of the united states they put that in there so that as they acquired land and moved west just like they did with missouri and illinois and florida and louisiana they acquired that land dispose of it off into new states That was a power that the federal government didn't have. So they said, Congress has the power to dispose of, and of course to him that means keep it forever and ever and ever. 

Tim Barton [00:09:56] Let me ask just the repeat of this thought, because I think I've heard you say this before, you've been on the program many times, and I've this stat from you before, but it's staggering every time I hear it. The federal government doesn't just own one third of the United States, it's half of the land west of the Rockies. So, and actually for some of these states, just because it's proportional, some it's a bigger percentage that the federal government might own 70 or 80 percent of some states and maybe it's only 40 or 50 percent of another state. But that is mind-boggling. So just again, for everybody listening, the federal government is the one that controls, owns 50 percent of the land west of the Rockies. And, Ken, as you point out, the Constitution not only gives no provision for this, it also raises the question, well, if this is It's not constitutional then how do they still have this land and why hasn't this been stopped? Why is it not back belonging to the states? 

Rep. Ken Ivory [00:10:58] Yeah, that's a great question, Tim. And like you said, we talked about this quite a bit before. I think the best analogy I could use on this is imagine you've got a rich grandfather and he decides to leave all of his mega gazillions of dollars to the grandchildren, but he makes the mom and dad, the trustee of the trust. So he leaves it all to the kids, but the mom and dad are trustee to the trust well, they give the assets to the children, the ones that know what's going on, they give the assets. But as new kids come along, they're like, well, they don't know the terms of the trust. And so we're just going to keep it. And in fact, the Supreme Court repeatedly called the United States a trustee. And Tim, the reason the federal government ever controlled land in the first place is a question so central to the foundation of the United States, I would call it first great compromise. You know, you got Roger Sherman and the great compromise, the House and the Senate, but we never even would have gotten there if they hadn't compromised on land because when they declared independence, Maryland said, how are we gonna pay for this? They said, oh, don't worry about it. We're all gonna get killed anyway. What do you care, right? Maryland had no claim to Western lands. Five others had no claimed to Western Lands. And they're saying, hey, if we throw in with you, we're just gonna trade one tyrant for another because if we win and Virginia claims all the way to the Pacific Ocean. They'll just sell land to raise revenue. We got to raise taxes. Our people are going to leave, go to Virginia. We trade one tyrant for another. They refused to sign on to the Articles of Confederation, Tim, 1776, 1778, all the way to 1781. They refused the sign on. Finally, the Continental Congress did a resolution, said, be it resolved that the unoperated lands that will be ceded to the United States by the states shall be disposed of, and get this, to create distinct Republican states with the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, independence as all the other states, use the proceeds to pay the debt of the war, and that's how they came into this, that was the trust agreement, and that's where Article 4 of the Constitution comes from, where Congress has the power to dispose of the land, create equal states, so Congress isn't a land baron, Virginia's not a land baron. Maryland doesn't get, you know, trade one time for another, and that was the first great compromise that led to all of this. 

Tim Barton [00:13:29] So Ken, I know there's groups out there, like American Lands Council, that has made this a priority, which was a group that you were very involved with. I know for years you were helping lead a lot of what was going on there. What is it now? I mean, as we look and see that what's happening is clearly not constitutional, it's not original intent. This is not going the way it's supposed to. What can states do? What can people do in states to say we... We need to rectify and bring a remedy to this problem. What can we do now? 

Rep. Ken Ivory [00:14:02] Yeah, we'll get this Tim. When people talk about debt deficit, environmental issues, I would submit that the greatest solution to all is going back to the original recipe, trusting people with land and liberty in pursuit of happiness. I mean, there's more land than the Louisiana purchase locked up. Even if you take national parks, monuments, wilderness, take all of that off the table, there's still more land than the Louisiana purchase is locked up by the federal government and more recoverable oil than the rest of the world combined. Federal government manages our forest for maximum combustion, you know, they say they're doing it to protect the owl, they manage the forest to burn. So Utah's already prepared a lawsuit. We're ready to move on that transfer of the land to the states and hunters and fishers don't need to worry. We're not going to take your guns away in the states. We aren't going to keep you from hunting. We're going to preserve the multiple use and the sustained yield, protect all the rights that have grown up since we became a state in 1896. But that's the greatest way that we can grow our way out of the debt and all the things that are going on is go back to the recipe, trust with land, liberty, sub-governance, and we'll have an economic constitutional environmental renaissance. 

Tim Barton [00:15:19] Well, and Ken, we're so grateful that that you have been a leader in this. And as you say, there's a lawsuit right now, challenging this, hopefully working his way to the Supreme Court that maybe can overturn some of this and say, no, the state should be in control of this land. And then as you mentioned, if the state's in control, then if they say we have all of this untapped potential, whether it be in some of our force, which there's levels of irony when people that live in man-made city structures and dwellings are going to tell people that they live in the country the best way to manage the country and we're like you have no idea what you're talking about with the country the people that actually care the most about the environment are usually going to be your farmers your ranchers the people who live in it they're going to take the best care of it similar when you talk about even things like the timber industry You know who cares about having forest people that harvest timber because they need forest for what they do but they do all kinds of land management with this and we know that some of the reasons we've seen some of these crazy forest fires They've been in areas where the government says you can't go and you can t clean any of the undergrowth the underbrush The dead things that have fallen there's so many things that could happen That the states could do to utilize the land in a far more responsible way, enjoy great benefit and as you mentioned even do things to pay off debt some significant things But I want to go back to one of the things that I think is quite important for many of our listeners because for so many Conservatives and an outdoors enthusiast. There's a a conflict in some of their minds when they say hey We love America founding fathers Constitution But we don't want to lose our hunting grounds, where we don't want to lose the ability to go hunt an elk or whatever it might be. And as you point out, there are ways to preserve that. So if you would, let's speak very specifically to the outdoor enthusiast, to the hunter, why shouldn't they be concerned if this goes back to control of the state? Like what would the state maybe have the opportunity to do or what's the likelihood that the state would do something that maintains some of those hunting grounds, as you mentioned. 

Rep. Ken Ivory [00:17:21] Yeah, you know, Tim, one thing I used to always tell my kids, if you see a herd on the move, don't look so much at the herd, but look at who's driving the herd. Who's driving this herd? Who's drive in the herd that, oh, my goodness, you'll lose your ability to hunt and fish and the states will sell off your land. Who's behind that? And I can tell you, you don't have to look too far behind that, that you'll see money coming in from sources and a lot of them even outside the United States. They don't want you to self govern in your state. They want the government to grow. They want to keep you from managing your land. And the simple answer is self-governance. If Utah has control of our land, right now, I have counties that have less than 10% tax of the land. Many counties in Utah. We can't educate our kids, grow our economy. And Illinois was that way for five decades. Missouri, Florida was that away for five decades. They fought this same fight and won. Suppose Utah gets our land, California gets the land, Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming. Well, we're gonna manage ours for multiple use sustain yield. We've got more recoverable oil than the rest of the world combined in Utah. But as you said, we gonna manage that properly to maintain the resource, the environment. Tourism is one of our greatest industries. We're never gonna mess that up. But we also know hunting and fishing and so if California locks it up, people are going to move to Utah. That competition among states, you're going to see that play out. This story already played out for all the states west of the original 13 colonies to the Mississippi River. They were 90% federally controlled for five decades. They finally disposed of their land. Well, they're managing their states appropriately. If Arkansas can manage theirs, I could certainly manage ours And the world's not going to end. You're still going to hunt and fish. You're going to have your rights. But self-governance happens closest to us. Whenever you see somebody arguing to take power away from you, from your voice in states, I want to take a double, triple look at that. Because that's how government centralizes. It does it with fear. It does with you can't govern yourself. You'll mess it up. No government's perfect, but you always want that government closest to you. It's going to be more accountable. You're going to able to have more voice in what happens. 

Tim Barton [00:19:44] Well, Ken, we are so grateful for your leadership on this over the years. You've always been such a competent leader and a confident voice on these issues. And obviously one of the reasons we are so grateful to you as well is because you point back to the original documents. When you have somebody that can talk about Elbridge Gerry and some of the early founding fathers, I mean, this is a different kind of guy. When you can go back to The Constitutional Convention, you can back to George Mason's, the people who were part of framing this and even have those conversations and debates. That warms our heart and we're so grateful that that you are always a faithful friend taking time to come and share with our listeners. So Ken, thank you so much for being with us today. 

Rep. Ken Ivory [00:20:24] Hey, Tim, you and your dad are my inspiration. I mean, I keep wanting to dig back just so I can, I can stay somewhere in the same stratosphere with the two of you guys are awesome. And what you do to help inspire state leaders is truly, truly amazing. And, and I want to come back and talk about the federalism stuff that we're doing again, that just comes from all the great things you teach. So keep up the good work. 

Tim Barton [00:20:46] Well, so if people want to find out more, and maybe they want to follow you, what would you tell them where to go for federalism? Where can they follow you on social media or wherever else? 

Rep. Ken Ivory [00:20:55] Yeah so we've got this national federal initiative there's a website on that national federalism initiative.org /.com uh you can follow me on facebook twitter you know any of those kinds of things but tim it's a big time we've gotta institutionalize decentralization we can't keep playing this march to the brink of civil war every four years and trade our entire you know culture religion business over whether a blue king or a red king controls the executive order you gotta work with this administration, institutionalize that original recipe, fix the machine, not who drives the machine. Not whether they yank it left or right. We gotta fix the machines. That's the beauty, that's the exceptional nature of what they gave us in the United States of America. So thanks for pointing that out all the time. We're sure grateful for you guys and keep it up. We're here to help any way we can. 

Tim Barton [00:21:48] Thank you so much. We sure love you. Well everybody else we are gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with David Barton and Rick Green 

Rick Green [00:23:01] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Ken Ivory for joining us today as well. And, and this is one guys that most people, when they hear about it, they immediately, I wonder what the total numbers are, but they immediately go, that's just not right. Like what a waste. Now there's some I'm sure that think, well, you know, if I get to go hunt on that land or I get the do whatever on that lamb, but most of the time you don't get to the feds keep you from even being able to use it, but just for my fair fairness and what's the best use of the land perspective, it makes sense to put an end to this nonsense. 

David Barton [00:23:30] Yeah. And Rick, as you just mentioned, Tim mentioned earlier, it's not like the federal government takes this land and holds it for all the people to have parks because most of the federal land they hold, they don't even let you get on. They don't let it be used. They won't let cattle be grazed on it. Ranchers can't use it. It's just, they just completely isolate it and demand that no human touch be on that land. Now, can you name anything at all? The federal government is really good at, and I think the only thing I can name is spending money. They're excellent at that, but the problem is that destroys everything else when they do. They spend so much money they get in debt, and they're back to the Bible where the debt is the basis of slavery. And so you don't want that. You're enslaving the next generation. So they're not good at this. And it's not like that all these states east of the Mississippi don't have state parks. They do. They have great parks. Look at Virginia. Virginia's got terrific park system in the state. And it's not that if the federal government gets this land, we're going to lose all of our ability to have parks. And we want to enjoy Lake Powell and we can't enjoy the Grand Canyon. That's not, that's not it at all. You have terrific state parks. Pennsylvania is another one does a great job with public parks and public lands and Alabama, just so many places. So all of that is pretty crazy. But I think what Ken pointed out was really good was that the federal government is the trustee of the land is what they've made themselves. Now trustee By definition, I looked this up while he was talking, but definition in Webster's 1828 is someone who holds something in trust for someone else. So the federal government is holding it for someone else, no they're not, right now they're holding it for themselves, they have no intention of letting go of that or releasing it to anyone else. And so I think what Ken said is really good is the federal governments become the real land baron here. If we had an individual, you know, there was a lot of ruckus made about Ted Turner years ago when he got the a hundred thousand acres up in Montana. And he started buying up around it. And they said, I was going to be a land bearer and this is really bad. Well, that is what the federal government is. It's a land bearing. It has taken so much of what these states have. So, you, know, putting it back in private hands. And I was thinking about it too, and talking is when is the last time you've heard of any privately managed forest having forest fires? Like what we see in state managed grounds like in California or in so much of the West Coast. I mean, a warehouser, they have massive, massive force. The same with Sierra Pacific and Georgia Pacific and Louisiana, all these are lumber companies. They manage the lands really good and you don't have a devastation of the fires and destruction. So private hands, just overwhelmingly, they do things so much better than the federal government doesn't. Ken, it is such a good interview to hear those stats he had, especially hearing him start by going to the Constitution and quoting Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 17. What a good way to start the conversation. 

Rick Green [00:26:29] Yeah. I mean, it gives you, you know, not only the constitutional perspective, but that historical perspective. And this is one eventually, I believe we can win. We just have to keep pressing the gas. It's going to take time. We'll eventually get there. Out of time for today, folks. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.