Timeline: Radical antigovernment right and federal land-use disputes https://t.co/6ZPhjn7DG3 #OregonStandoff pic.twitter.com/5XiHxWLytX
— SPLC (@splcenter) January 4, 2016
There's still no telling what will come of the armed, self-styled "militiamen" who've taken over a few buildings in a remote Eastern Oregon wildlife refuge. The FBI is heading up the response, but so far authorities are being cautious.
The drama of unoccupied federal buildings falling into the hands of a pack of gun-toting dudes announcing vague plans and making spurious claims has now spurred coverage around the world—and obvious comparisons to a 2014 standoff in Nevada helmed by the same ranchers now spewing rhetoric in Harney County. But it's worth noting Oregon's seen less prominent action recently in the movement to push the federal government to cede its lands to state ownership.
Similar sentiments have been around for decades— just like clashes between federal officials Dwight and Steve Hammond, the Oregon ranchers whose impending imprisonment started all this.
In the last year alone, anger over federal land ownership has spurred action a couple different ways in Oregon. In April, members of a group called Oath Keepers converged on Medford to assist a pair of mine owners who said the feds were infringing on their rights. Like the Hammonds, those mine owners initially asked the "militia" members for help, before spurning their activities. The Oath Keepers—often current and former members of the armed services who say they're defending the constitution in the face of government overreach—had begun phoning threats to employees of the US Bureau of Land Management (which is a worryingly common occurrence these days).
Notions of "reclaiming" federal lands have popped up in more mainstream ways, too. During last year's legislative session, four Republican lawmakers introduced a "memorial" calling on the federal government to "transfer title to all of federal public lands within Oregon’s borders directly to the State of Oregon." That would amount to A LOT of property changing hands—more than half of the state is under federal control. Check out this useful map the Oregonian created to illustrate how much Oregon land is owned by the US government.
The memorial, like proposals that have popped up all over Western states recently, hinge on a notion that states can do a better job managing vast federal properties, and that they shouldn't belong to the US government to begin with (Utah actually passed a bill in 2012). It's an idea that's growing increasingly popular among Western conservatives, according to a recent report by the conservation group the Center for Western Priorities.
In Oregon, the report makes particular note of state Representative Carl Wilson, a Grants Pass conservative and radio host who won cheers from Oath Keepers faithful last year for defending the miners in Josephine County. Wilson was a co-sponsor of the resolution on federal land reclamation. That resolution failed to get even a single hearing in the Democrat-dominated state legislature.
Other legislators who backed the land memorial: Sen. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer), Sen. Tim Knopp (R-Bend), and Rep. Duane Stark (R-Grants Pass).