Opinion ID: 1176303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The State School Trust Lands

Text: As Arizona approached statehood in 1910, Congress proposed to transfer millions of acres of federal land directly to the new state for the support of its common schools. Enabling Act § 24. Congress had made similar grants to other states with untoward results. Some states improvidently leased and sold their lands with little or no benefit to the public schools. See Murphy v. State, 65 Ariz. 338, 351, 181 P.2d 336, 344 (1947). As a result, when Congress agreed to give the land to Arizona, it required Arizona to accept and hold the land in trust and prohibited the sale or other disposal of such trust land except under extremely restrictive and detailed conditions. See Kadish v. Arizona State Land Department, 155 Ariz. 484, 487, 747 P.2d 1183, 1186 (1987). The members of Arizona's constitutional convention fully appreciated the value of the proposed school grant. The delegates therefore drafted an unambiguous clause accepting the gift and restrictions of the Enabling Act: The State of Arizona and its people hereby consent to all and singular the provisions of the Enabling Act ... concerning the lands thereby granted or confirmed to the State, the terms and conditions upon which said grants and confirmations are made, and the means and manner of enforcing such terms and conditions, all in every respect and particular as in the aforesaid Enabling Act provided. Ariz. Const. art. 20, ¶ 12. The framers of our constitution, however, went beyond mere acceptance of the terms and benefits of a federal statute. They independently replicated the essential restrictions of the Enabling Act in Article 10 of the Arizona Constitution. In a special direct election held February 8, 1911, the people of Arizona approved their convention's constitution by a vote of 12,187 to 3,822. Constitution Ratification, Phoenix Arizona Republican, Feb. 10, 1911, at 1, col. 3; Canvass of the Returns, Phoenix Arizona Republican, Feb. 28, 1911, at 1, col. 1, 2. When Arizona ultimately attained statehood on February 14, 1912, the constitutional conditions and limits on the management and disposal of the state school trust lands became part of Arizona's fundamental law. Union Oil Co. of Arizona v. Norton-Morgan Commercial Co., 23 Ariz. 236, 241, 202 P. 1077, 1079 (1922). Congress has periodically amended the Enabling Act to allow Arizona more flexible use of its school trust land. See, e.g., Act of June 5, 1936, Pub.L. No. 658 (ch. 517), 49 Stat. 1477; Act of June 2, 1951, Pub.L. No. 44 (ch. 120), 65 Stat. 50. These amendments were normally the result of specific requests for change channeled through Arizona's congressional delegation. See, e.g., S.Rep. No. 1939, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. (1936); H.R.Rep. No. 2615, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. (1936); S.Rep. No. 194, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (1951); H.R.Rep. No. 429, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (1951); 97 Cong. Rec. 3628-29, 5731-32 (1951) (floor debates). In each case, the Arizona electorate voted to change the Arizona Constitution to take advantage of the prior revision in the federal statutory law. See, e.g., 1940 Ariz. Sess. Laws, Initiative and Referendum Measures, at 392-93 (amending Ariz. Const. art. 10, § 3); 1951 Ariz. Sess. Laws, Initiative and Referendum Measures, at 483-85 (same). See also Boice v. Campbell, 30 Ariz. 424, 428, 248 P. 34, 35 (1926). Thus, at all times since Arizona joined the Union, there have been two complementary levels of protection against improvident state legislative or executive disposal of Arizona's school trust land. The dispositive issue in the present case is whether either the Enabling Act or the Arizona Constitution allows a state school district to condemn a tract of Arizona's school trust land.