Backward land legislation infringes on personal property rights, shortsighted
Arizona Capitol Times, Jan. 21, 2020
Rep. Mark Finchem and Sen. Sonny Borrelli have taken a backward and myopic view of our shared public lands, while at the same time directly infringing on the rights of private landowners. That’s no small accomplishment. The two politicians have introduced identical pieces of legislation that would prohibit the sale, gifting or granting of land to the federal government – their weak argument for this is that the federal government already owns too much land in the state and that any further federal control would deprive the state of tax dollars. Here is where they’re both wrong.