Gov. Rick Perry had a clear message to the Bureau of Land Management: Don’t think you can come into Texas and take Red River private properties without a fight.
“It’s not a dare, it’s a promise that we’re going to stand up for private property rights in the state of Texas,” Mr. Perry said, adding that the federal government is “out of control” and that Lone Star residents aren’t going to put up with a BLM replay of Nevada, Fox News reported.
Mr. Perry’s comments came on the tail end of an armed BLM standoff against Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy over disputed grazing rights. Reportedly, the BLM has now set its sights on 90,000 acres of privately owned property on the Texas side of the Red River.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott already issued a similar warning to BLM agents over the property. On Tuesday, Mr. Abbott said to Breitbart that he’s poised to “go to the Red River and raise a ’Come and Take It’ flag to tell the feds to stay out of Texas.”
Mr. Abbott didn’t step back from those comments a day later during a broadcast interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren.
“At a minimum,” Mr. Abbott said, Fox News reported, “[the feds are] overreaching, trying to grab land that belongs to Texans or worse, they are violating due process rights by just claiming that this land suddenly belongs to the federal government. … This is just the latest symptom of what seems to be a federal government run amok that is messing in statse’ rights and now messing in private property rights.”
The BLM, for its part, says the courts decided long ago that the property is supposed to be public, but Mr. Perry said the agency was wrong and that it’s actually trying to swipe land from the private sector.
He said, to Fox News: “Is the federal government going to come back in and say, ’you know what, Mexico used to own the state of Texas so let’s have a conversation of where the rightful ownership of this is’?”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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