Once again, Utahns can be thankful that the judicial branch of their government has come to their rescue.
In recent months, it was the Utah Supreme Court that defended the right of Utah voters to design their own form of government, choose their own representatives and to be given honest information on ballot questions, as well as defending, to some degree, a Utah woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices.
Monday, aid came from the Supreme Court of the United States in two exceedingly brief, somewhat cryptic orders.
One rightly held off a long-shot attempt by the state of Utah to win control of 18 million acres of federal land. This is land that happens to lie within the borders of the state but, by right and title, belongs to all the people of the United States.
The ruling was a narrow one, only denying Utah’s plan to skip the normal procedure of making their claims to the local federal district court and instead jump right to the nation’s highest tribunal. Sadly, the ruling did not end the state’s utterly meritless claim that it is somehow entitled to own all that land even though our laws are clear that only Congress can make such a decision.
The high court also correctly brushed off the insane plea of former state Rep. Phil Lyman to effectively set aside last November’s election because, in Lyman’s fevered imagination, his victory in the state’s Republican convention made him, not the recently re-elected Spencer Cox, the rightful GOP candidate.
Neither of these cases has come to an end. But, at least for now, the Supreme Court has given each of them a deserved smack-down.
