Cliven Bundy

Shortly after Bundy’s remarks about African-Americans being better off as slaves, US Senator Dean Heller (R-NV), who previously has stated his support for Bundy, says through a spokesperson that he

completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.

Another supporter, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who like Heller has expressed his support for Bundy, now states:

His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him.

Additionally, the conservative organization Americans for Prosperity Nevada deletes all of its material posted in support of Bundy from its Facebook and Twitter accounts.

US Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who has called Bundy and his followers “domestic terrorists,” slams Bundy for his allegedly racist remarks and his position on grazing fees:

I used to live in North Las Vegas and it is home to some of the hardest-working people I have ever met — men and women who embody the American dream by working hard every day to build a better life for themselves and their families. By contrast, Cliven Bundy has spent decades profiting off government land while refusing to pay the same fair use fees as his fellow ranchers. Today, Bundy revealed himself to be a hateful racist. But by denigrating people who work hard and play by the rules while he mooches off public land he also revealed himself to be a hypocrite.

Barry Weller of the Apache County, Arizona Board of Supervisors says that Bundy’s actions are entirely within the law. Referring to a Nevada court case won by Wayne Hage, who argued that he had the right to graze his cows on federal land because it was within two miles of water sources he had developed, Weller says:

The Bundys and the Hages are standing on what’s called their water rights and their grazing rights [which] were pre-existing in territorial times, long before the government took over and these states became states and these water rights are mentioned, and any federal law or policy act that comes thereafter is always stated, ‘subject to pre-existing rights.’ So, when people say they’re not legally doing what they’re doing, they are. They are doing what they’re supposed to be doing: standing for their rights.

Instead, Weller says, the federal government was engaged in what he calls a “criminal shakedown” for payment:

That was absolutely deadly force. … Several cattle were killed as they rounded them up and pulled them into the BLM pens. It’s just a devastation of force.

The BLM sends Bundy a list of the cattle seen grazing on public lands, and bills him nearly $330,000 for trespassing and investigation fees.

Bundy tells a reporter he has “fired” the BLM and will continue grazing his cattle on the federal allotment no matter what the BLM says.

The BLM notifies Bundy that if he does not remove his cattle and fencing from federal lands, the government will do it and charge him the costs. In response, he tells the agency that he will do whatever he deems necessary to protect what he calls his “unalienable forage, water and access rights”.

Bundy says that President Clinton’s establishment of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument is an illegal federal land grab. His grandparents settled in the Parashant area of Arizona in 1877. Bundy says,

The terrible thing about it is there is private property, customs and lifestyles [at stake].

Virtually all of the 1.1 million acres of land in the monument area was federally managed land before it was designated as a federally protected monument area. The monument designation completes the protection of the entire Grand Canyon area, and renders it off limits for ranching, mining, oil/gas exploration, and development.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denies Bundy’s appeal of a federal ruling finding him guilty of trespassing and failing to pay his grazing fees. The court says,

Bundy has not shown why he could not or would not comply with the Court’s order [to cease grazing].

The court fines Bundy for willful trespass.

Bundy and some of his fellow ranchers say that the federal government has no rights to the 87% of the land it owns in that state. Bundy and his associates say that Nevada’s state rights invalidate federal rights. An area resident says that federal laws and court decisions mean nothing, and calls their resistance “a revolutionary war.” Bundy says:

I’m still saying the state of Nevada owns that land, and the federal government has been an encroacher. I’m not moving my cattle. We have … rights.

He says his personal rights to the land trump federal law, and that his rights derive from his contention that his Mormon ancestors were using the land well before the federal government claimed authority over it.

Bundy, still refusing to pay his grazing fees to the federal government, sends a payment check to Clark County instead. The county returns his check, citing a lack of jurisdiction.