Payson Roundup | September 28, 2010 - 

American Stewards of Liberty (the premier property rights organization in the U.S.) recently acknowledged Arizona state Sen. Sylvia Allen for her authoring, shepherding through passage by the Arizona Legislature and signing by Governor Brewer, of SB 1398. This bill requires federal or state government agencies to coordinate their plans for private or business rights or properties with affected local cities, towns, counties and taxing districts, whenever a federal/state rule, regulation, plan or policy is more restrictive on personal and property rights than local law.

It also provides a method whereby individuals or businesses adversely affected by the government agency can insist that the affected local agency (a county board of supervisors, for example) conform to the law’s requirement to coordinate with the government, or hold public hearings to explain why they choose not to coordinate.

This “coordination” requirement is the tool that American Stewards of Liberty has been using to preserve property rights of businesses and individuals across the country.

The effectiveness of this requirement was most recently shown when five small Texas towns (total population about 6,500), their school districts, and one local business shut down the inspection-free NAFTA superhighway plan (designed to connect Chinese-owned Mexican harbors with Canadian markets) which would have provided revenue to foreign companies at the cost of 586,000 private acres confiscated and over 1 million people and their families displaced in Texas alone.

The Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council voted unanimously to recommend that the Arizona statute be put in model statute format and presented to all 50 state legislatures, supporting incorporation into their state law.

In the Arizona Legislature, this gemstone for individual property rights was passed with 94 percent of the Senate Republicans voting “Yes” and 25 percent of the Senate Democrats voting “Yes;” while, in the House, 94 percent of the Republicans voted “Yes” and 4 percent of the Democrats voted “Yes.”

Considering this abysmal lack of support for individual property rights on the part of Democrat members of the Legislature, voters should be asking themselves when in the voting booth this November: which party do they prefer to be looking out for their land, homes and businesses in Arizona — Democrats or Republicans? This bill would never have passed with Democrats controlling the governorship and Legislature.

We especially need to keep Sen. Sylvia Allen working for Arizonans in the state Legislature.

Terry L. Putnam