Opinion ID: 891708
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Enabling Act Drafters Purposely Constrained Land Commissioner Authority

Text: {38} To infer broad authority from the word dispos[e] would be to construe the Enabling Act precisely in the manner that Congress and the leaders of the New Mexico Territory sought to avoid. The Enabling Act was written to preclude any license of construction or liberties of inference. Ervien v. United States, 251 U.S. 41, 47, 40 S.Ct. 75, 64 L.Ed. 128 (1919). Contrary to the consistent narrow interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court, see, e.g., United States v. N.M., 536 F.2d 1324, 1327 (10th Cir.1976), the Land Commissioner would have us construe dispos[e] to afford additional, broad, and almost unrestrained authority to convey state trust land, subject only to the single requirement that any such disposal obtain at least true appraised value. The Land Commissioner's view, however, would ignore the history that influenced the Enabling Act's restrictions on land disposal. See Robert W. Larson, New Mexico's Quest for Statehood 1846-1912 268 (1968) (Lands granted [by the Enabling Act] were placed in a trust to be disposed of by a specified procedure.). {39} As the Arizona Supreme Court has noted, the Enabling Act for New Mexico and Arizona marked a complete and absolute departure from the enabling acts under which other states were admitted to the Union. Murphy v. State, 65 Ariz. 338, 181 P.2d 336, 344 (1947). More specifically, the Enabling Act was a response to, and an attempt to preclude, the types of abuses that had occurred in other states and in territorial New Mexico. Id. Unfettered local control of trust lands had left a scandal in virtually every state, and these granted lands and the monies derived from a disposition thereof were so poorly administered, so unwisely invested and dissipated, that Congress concluded to make sure, in light of experiences of the past, that such would not occur in the new states of New Mexico and Arizona. Id. New Mexico's own scandal involved land covered with valuable timber that had been granted to the Territory of New Mexico through a federal act in 1898; territorial authorities had violated the law in disposing of the timber. Id. at 345. The Enabling Act was drafted in the wake of twelve pending U.S. Department of Justice lawsuits in the New Mexico Territory against corporations or against the Territory in conjunction with a corporation. S.Rep. No. 61-454, at 37 (2d Sess. 1910). In addition, it has been widely represented that during the years following the Civil War and leading up to New Mexico's statehood, members of the so-called Santa Fe Ring, a group of land speculators, including prominent politicians, lawyers, and other leading citizens of the territory, assumed huge land holdings through corrupt practices, taking advantage of legal discrepancies and ignorance of the land law on part of land grant holders. See generally David Correia, Appendix: Land Grant Speculation in New Mexico During the Territorial Period, 48 Nat. Res. J. 927 (2008). {40} The history surrounding the Enabling Act demonstrates an intent to prevent future corruption by strictly limiting the ability of the Land Commissioner to dispose of trust lands. See, e.g., Larson, supra, at 267 (explaining that the reasons for the [h]arsh restrictions on the handling of public lands, included in the Senate version of the statehood bill and eventually adopted in the Enabling Act, may be traced back to the land fraud scandals). The Enabling Act's land disposal conditions were designed to protect the Land Commissioner from exposure to corrupt and coercive forces. Indeed, Senator Beveridge of Indiana, Chairman of the Committee on the Territories, considered the restrictions on disposal of the land to be quite the most important item in the legislation. Lassen v. Arizona ex rel. Arizona Highway Dep't, 385 U.S. 458, 468, 87 S.Ct. 584, 17 L.Ed.2d 515 (1967). The Senate Bill stipulated that any conveyance of public trust land must be at a public auction, after adequate public notice, to the highest bidder, at no less than appraised value. In addition, transactions upon credit were prohibited unless accompanied by security. S.Rep. No. 61-454, at 18. {41} Senator Beveridge had good reason for his opinion that the restrictions on land disposals were the most important part of the Enabling Act legislation. Concerns about disposal of New Mexico's land were held at the highest level of government, by President Roosevelt. See 2 Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The Leading Facts of New Mexican History 549 (Sunstone Press 2007) (1912). In 1906, when Herbert J. Hagerman was appointed governor of the territory of New Mexico, [i]t was generally believed that [Hagerman] had been chosen for the express purpose of assisting in uncovering frauds in the sale and disposal of lands . . . to corporations and special interests, to some of which the territorial officials and their friends were parties. . . . Id. at 549. {42} In authoring and signing the Enabling Act, members of Congress sought to limit the power of the Land Commissioner by requiring transparent and fair disposal of public land for the public's benefit. In addition to discussing the ongoing lawsuits in the Territory, Senator Beveridge's Committee on the Territories Report, accompanying the Senate bill, highlighted testimony by two leaders representing the Territory of New Mexico. See id. at 20. At that time, L. Bradford Prince was a former New Mexico Territorial Governor, id., and Charles A. Speiss was President of the New Mexico Constitutional Convention of 1910. New Mexico Blue Book 2007-2008 48 (Mary Herrera, Secretary of State ed. 2008). Each New Mexican leader responded to questions from the Committee Chairman: The CHAIRMAN. . . . . I understand you to say in private conversation that you highly approved, as you said every other man did who thought of the subject, of the safeguards thrown about the disposition of public lands granted in this bill. Mr. PRINCE. We approve of the strictest safeguards that can possibly be found in order to insure the perpetuity of that fund and its inviolability. S.Rep. No. 61-454, at 20. This Court also considers the restrictions on land disposals inviolate. The Report's highlighted testimony continued: The CHAIRMAN. At that point, let me ask you this question: In the bill introduced in the Senate, known as the Senate bill, very careful restrictions have been thrown around the disposition of this land. I understand you to say to me in private conversation that you were entirely satisfied that the restriction could not be made too strong. Mr. SPIESS. Absolutely, Senator, and more than that. We would have adopted those same restrictions by our constitutional convention Id. The CHAIRMAN (interposing): So you have no objection to these restrictions? Mr. SPIESS: No sir. Hearing Before the Committee on Territories, United States Senate, 61st Cong. 19 (1910) (statements by Sen. Albert Beveridge, Chairman, S. Comm. on the Territories). Testimony from Arizona representatives expressed similar support for the restrictions, asserting the restrictions on such public lands can not be made too broad. S.Rep. No. 61-454, at 21. An Arizona representative even testified that he desired measures that would prevent the public trust lands from being disposed of in large areas. Id. at 20. {43} While this Court will usually defer to an executive official's discretion, the Enabling Act's conditions and limitations were purposefully designed to circumscribe discretion. See United States v. New Mexico, 536 F.2d 1324, 1327 (10th Cir.1976) (In construing the Enabling Act, the Supreme Court citing the restrictions placed on the use of the trust lands has consistently applied a narrow interpretation to the terms of the Enabling Act.). The central problem which confronted the [Enabling] Act's draftsmen was . . . to devise constraints which would assure that the trust received in full fair compensation for trust lands. The method of transfer and the transferee were material only so far as necessary to assure that the trust sought and obtained appropriate compensation. This is confirmed by the legislative history of the Enabling Act. All the restrictions on the use and disposition of the trust lands, including those on the powers of sale and lease, were first inserted by the Senate Committee on the Territories. Senator Beveridge, the committee's chairman, made clear on the floor of the Senate that the committee's determination to require the restrictions sprang from its fear that the trust would be exploited for private advantage. He emphasized that the committee was influenced chiefly by the repeated violations of a similar grant made to New Mexico in 1898. The violations had there allegedly consisted of private sales at unreasonably low prices, and the committee evidently hoped to prevent such depredations here by requiring public notice and sale. The restrictions were thus intended to guarantee, by preventing particular abuses through the prohibition of specific practices, that the trust received appropriate compensation for trust lands. Lassen, 385 U.S. at 463-64, 87 S.Ct. 584 (1967) (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted); see also State ex rel. State Eng'r v. Comm'n of Pub. Lands, 2009-NMCA-004, ¶ 30, 145 N.M. 433, 200 P.3d 86 (declining to interpret the terms of the Enabling Act expansively when the congressional intent behind the terms was clear). {44} The implications of the Land Commissioner's interpretation of the Enabling Act cannot be overstated. The inescapable result of validating these exchanges under his reasoning would be to authorize future public-private exchanges of any scale, subjecting millions of acres of trust land to disposition at the discretion of the Land Commissioner. We fail to understand why Congress would have taken such pains to safeguard sales and leases for the benefit of the trust, and then leave open all other kinds of dispositions from the trust to the vagaries of influence and manipulation. The Land Commissioner's interpretation would open the door to collusive deals and favoritism, a door the framers of the Enabling Act explicitly stated intentions to shut. It would allow private deals favoring select private parties.