Editorial: All the laws

It is often said, rightly enough, that America is a nation of laws. Meaning we are governed by laws -- state, local and federal -- that have been properly created and that do not violate the sovereign law, the Constitution of the United States, and the constitutions of the various states.

It is not up to the Utah Legislature to decide how federal laws should be enforced on federal land.

And yet, that is what Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, proposes. In HB146, a ridiculous legislative effort to make Utah the overseer of federal law, Noel would elevate his notorious anti-government grandstanding to an embarrassing new level and drag all Utahns along with him.

The bill proposed by Noel would have given local police and courts permission to refuse to enforce federal laws they don't believe are constitutional. Fortunately, more reasonable legislators in the House voted to strike that, most onerous, portion.

Still, the bill would prohibit federal enforcement officers from doing their jobs, unless, oddly enough, those jobs are explicitly authorized in federal law, as Utah interprets it. It would further prohibit federal agents from enforcing any state laws anywhere in Utah, while allowing local officers to enforce federal law and requiring them to monitor activities of federal agents.

So, say a person suspected of breaking a Utah law -- perhaps a murder suspect -- were to hide out in a national park. A park ranger would have to sit on his hands and wait for a local sheriff, someone like Noel's son, Cameron, who happens to be the sheriff of Beaver County.

Noel has stamped his foot and shaken his fist at the federal government before, like a 2-year-old having a temper tantrum. He and his sidekick Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw flouted the law by tearing down Bureau of Land

Management signs limiting motorized access in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and organizing a raucous group of all-terrain-vehicle riders to careen up a closed streambed on federal land.

He also loudly criticized the arrest of 24 people in San Juan County for breaking federal law by dealing in ancient Native American artifacts last year.

The last time we looked, protecting federal land and enforcing federal laws on those lands are the explicit job descriptions of BLM, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service enforcement officers.

If Noel finds fault with federal laws, he should work to get them changed -- through proper processes. Utah is still a state of the Union, and most Utahns like it that way.

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Source: http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_14500071

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