FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED FEB. 25, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
In two Nevada courtrooms, the good guys get their say
Land rights activists report the letters poured in to Chief U.S.
District Judge Howard McKibben in the weeks before his Feb. 21 sentencing
of Ruby Valley rancher Cliff Gardner.
(Gardner was convicted last November on charges of grazing his cattle
from time to time on government land in northeast Nevada -- acreage his
family has ranched for generations.)
One also wonders if His Honor didn't raise a finger and sense a change in
the wind when the U.S. Forest Service -- now serving a very different
master in the person of incoming Interior Secretary Gale Norton -- last
week folded its tents entirely in the five-year struggle to close off the
Jarbidge Canyon Road (also in northeast Nevada) to all human access.
("We received threats and intimidation from the government up until
election time, and then they [federal officials] became cooperative," says
Nolan Lloyd, chairman of the Elko County Commission.)
Finally, some 75 people -- mostly ranchers rooting for the defendant --
packed McKibben's courtroom Wednesday to see if the judge would make a
sacrificial lamb of Gardner in the ongoing federal campaign to drive the
West's small, family ranchers off theland.
And suddenly, the judge's demeanor began to change.
Where Gardner had previously been told he would not be allowed to stage
his slide show in the courtroom, presenting his case that grazing cattle on
the lands actually increases crop diversity and wildlife yields (while
challenging federal jurisdiction over the lands in question), Judge
McKibben announced at the last minute that Gardner would be given half an
hour to speak his piece.
"He told him he'd only let him run it for half an hour, but I think it
ran 45 minutes or an hour," says Gardner's son Charley, reached at the
Slash-J ranch on Friday. "They let him do the whole slide show and it came
off real well."
In the end, the judge imposed a $1,000 fine, suspended pending appeal --
a minimal penalty -- and ordered the Forest Service to sit down and work
with Gardner. Another witness describes prosecutors and other government
agents on hand looking "stunned -- and not in a happy way."
"He said they were supposed to work with my dad, theyre supposed to sit
down and have a talk, but he did order the cattle off the land," Charley
continues. "What he said is that if they get out again the Forest Service
has to notify us and then we have three days to get them off."
I asked the rodeo champion if the family's ranch can be operated at a
profit without using those federal lands, as such small ranchers have been
accustomed to do for more than a century.
"I don't think so."
So what's his father going to do?
"You'll have to get that from the horse's mouth," Charley said.
Cliff Grdner couldn't be reached for comment by deadline.
# # #
In one of the high points of the six-day Clutter vs. Transportation
Services Authority trial in the Las Vegas courtroom of District Judge Ron
Parraguirre -- which ended Wednesday -- attorneys for the linousine
commission and the town's "intervening" major limousine companies actually
went so far as to assert the reason more competition should not be allowed
in the limousine industries is because new competitors might ... charge
lower prices.
Oh, the horror.
The resulting lower profit margins could discourage operators from
spending enough on safety and vehicle upkeep, claimed defenders of the
existing protection racket.
Clark Neily, one of two attorneys for the Washington-based Institute for
Justice (representing the would-be independent limo operators) responded by
introducing voluminous evidence of accident and safety citations against
vehicles of today's operators.
So much for the theory that firms enjoying a well-padded government
monopoly will dutifully change out those old tires before they start to go
bald.
"One of the other things that was really notable during this trial was
how desperately the TSA plus the three intervening companies fought to keep
out evidence on what's been going on in the TSA in the intervening three
years" (since the plaintiffs had their limos impounded), explains Dana
Berliner, the other Institute for Justice attorney representing the
independents.
"What's been going on is that all the independent companies have had to
cut deals with the intervenors in order to get their certificates,"
Berliner told me Thursday.
Since Nevada law allows license applications to be rejected if existing
firms "intervene" to complain the new competition would hurt their bottom
lines, "Basically, if you're an independent your fate is in the hands of
these (existing) companies, because they either run you through the paper
mill or use up all of your resources on legal fees so you're not
financially fit anymore to get the license. ..."
I asked Ms. Berliner is she thought there's much chance Judge Parraguirre
will order her clients reimbursed for their trouble and expense, as well as
for the value of their seized vehicles.
"That'll never happen," she conceded. "Although it's within the power of
the court to make monetary restitution, that's not what this suit was
about. This is a due process constitutional case ... to get this arbitrary
and really burdensome and abusive process changed for everybody."
Judge Parraguirre is expected to rule in about six weeks.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to
Privacy Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E for Easy, Reno, NV 89502. His
book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement,
1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site
www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html
***
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved,
as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V.
Debs (1855-1926)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and
thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series
of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
* * *
If you have subscribed to vinsends@ezlink.com and you wishto unsubscribe,
send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your OLD address, including
the word "unsubscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line.
To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your
NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks)
in the "Subject" line.
All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns
until on or after the embargo date which appears at the top of each, and
that (should they then choose to do so) they copy the columns in their
entirety, preserving the original attribution.
The Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be
reached directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz
column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth
in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com.