Non-resident tag pricing

[Tom]

So, what do you guys think the next legal challenge will be? I had forgotten which clause the USO suit that was won was about. Then, it was trumped with a federal law, right? But, aren't you guys typing here, that law has to pass the test of being constitutional? USO won in a federal court, a new law reversed that, but it may or may not be constitutional? Isn't that right? Did they resolve that at MM? haha

WH, I think that's a pretty good argument, why go all the way out west?, but I think most American's understand the idea of a vacation to someplace different too.

I can't believe Big Fin. I finally read his post, politely ask him for his reference and he decides to leave. Instead of giving me the reference, he sends me to MM. Makes me think his post and reference is bs. Does anybody have a link to what he was talking about?

 

[BuzzH]

Tom,

Bigfin answered your question...Harry Reid sponsored the bill. It is constitutional.

Quit being hard-headed.

 

[Tom]

Check this out Buzz. You'd probably agree, some of these laws passed are unconstitutional, until challenged some people think they are ok, like the one we're discussing.

http://www.stanley2002.org/void.htm

 

[TLC]

Tom, not trying to jump on you also, but isn't the bottom line here that if you want to hunt other than in your home state, you either pay the price or you don't hunt? not sure why this is becoming such a pain topic? texas charges as much as anyone to come and hunt whitetails with big racks.

 

[Tom]

People pick on Texas, but I"m starting to see how cheap it is here, especially for a non-resident, if you do a little homework. I certainly like the year round hunting and variety of species here. Anybody can get a lot of tags, a liscense, and the hunting is the same cost for a non-resident as a resident, the odds of draw are the same.

 

[noharleyyet]

People pick on Texas, but I"m starting to see how cheap it is here, especially for a non-resident, if you do a little homework. I certainly like the year round hunting and variety of species here. Anybody can get a lot of tags, a liscense, and the hunting is the same cost for a non-resident as a resident, the odds of draw are the same.

C'mon Tom, if you don't have landowner friends or pay a hefty trespass (plus a trophy fee in most cases), you're not going to get a chance at big game in Texas. I like the 'if you don't like the rules move here' rationale but relocating would mean I'd have to hire people like wyopudthumper to work for me...guess I'll stay here & afford the NR tags.

 

[Wyodeerhunter]

If everyone took the time they bitch about non resident tag prices and actually worked they would be able to afford the tag increases. Its just too easy to bitch about it. It's not the states fault that you do not make enough money to afford the tags. The whole song and dance about "hunting is becoming a rich mans sports". BLAH BLAH BLAH. You better go catch the pity truck that just drove off because you are not getting any pity here.

How about doing some extra work to afford the tags? Do something that you are good at and you can make a little "side" money. Ex. Schmalts could give blow jobs. Noharley could give up using deer feeders. He would save a lot of money not having to buy corn. Or he could even disconnect the propane heater he has in his stand.

I hope the increased tag prices will keep some people from putting in. Increased odds I'll be chasing muleys in NV etc one day.

~Wyohump hunter

 

[Big Fin]

So, what do you guys think the next legal challenge will be? I had forgotten which clause the USO suit that was won was about. Then, it was trumped with a federal law, right? But, aren't you guys typing here, that law has to pass the test of being constitutional? USO won in a federal court, a new law reversed that, but it may or may not be constitutional? Isn't that right? Did they resolve that at MM? haha

WH, I think that's a pretty good argument, why go all the way out west?, but I think most American's understand the idea of a vacation to someplace different too.

I can't believe Big Fin. I finally read his post, politely ask him for his reference and he decides to leave. Instead of giving me the reference, he sends me to MM. Makes me think his post and reference is bs. Does anybody have a link to what he was talking about?

Alright Tom. I feel sorry for you, so I am going to violate my promise in my last post and take your bait. Dumb me. |oo

If you can't find a link to the Public Trust Document I referred to, your problem. I am not going to give Google lessons here.

The USO case made it to the 9th District Court (the most circuit court that is most overturned by the USSC of all circuit courts in the country) located in San Francisco. It was headed for the US Supreme Court in the following year or two. The Reid bill eliminated the need for the Supreme Court to hear it.

Here is a link to the Baldwin case. Read it and then stop your pissin and moanin'.

When people piss and moan a lot, my Grandpa always asks if they are a woman. He states, "You seem to have two sets of lips. One for pissin' and one for moanin'! Are you a woman."

So quit pissin' and moanin' Tom!


Anyhow, here is the link. Give it a break now.


http://law.jrank.org/pages/13545/Baldwin-v-Montana-Fish-Game-Commission.html


Other Free Encyclopedias :: Law Library - American Law and Legal Information :: Great American Court Cases Vol 17

Baldwin v. Montana Fish and Game Commission

Appellant
Lester Baldwin, et al.

Appellee
Fish and Game Commission of Montana

Appellant's Claim
That Montana's state game regulations violated Article IV, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant
James H. Goetz

Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Paul A. Lenzini

Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun (writing for the Court), Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell,Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart

Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Byron R. White
Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision
23 May 1978

Decision:
Montana's state fish and game laws were constitutional, and the appellant wasnot entitled to any relief from them.

Significance:
The ability of states to regulate hunting, fishing, and environmental protection was upheld, even if such regulation discriminated against nonresidents of the state in question.

The state of Montana has long been renowned for its hunting and fishing, andmaintains a thriving industry based on the outfitting and guiding of huntingand fishing parties. In the early 1970s, Lester Baldwin, a resident of Montana, was a state-licensed hunting guide specializing in the pursuit of elk. Themajority of Baldwin's clients were from other states and traveled to Montanafor the express purpose of elk hunting. In 1975, Montana's hunting regulations that required state residents pay $4 for an elk-hunting license, while nonresidents were required to purchase a combination hunting license, entitlingthem to shoot two deer and one elk, for $151.
Four of Baldwin's clients, who traveled from Minnesota to Montana each year to hunt elk, balked at the discrepancy between license fees for residents andnonresidents and, along with Baldwin, filed suit against the state in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana. The plaintiffs sought relief from Montana licensing requirements, claiming that the state game laws violatedtheir rights as set forth in Article IV, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitutionand reiterated in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court ruled against Baldwin, et al., and the group appealed theircase to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments on 5 October 1977.

Attorneys for the appellants argued that Montana's game laws, by discriminating against nonresidents in their fee structures, violated Article IV, Section2 of the Constitution, which states in part that "citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states," as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states in part that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

The respondents countered that Montana residents already paid for game conservation and regulation programs through their state taxes, and that the stateitself, by emphasizing wildlife conservation, had sacrificed economic development for the benefit of all and was due compensation from residents of more economically developed and environmentally degraded areas. Finally, the appellees presented evidence that nonresident hunters, by virtue of their general lack of experience, were a more difficult enforcement problem for state game wardens than resident hunters.

On 23 May 1978, the Court upheld the decision of the district court. In rejecting the appellants' claim that the Montana game laws violated Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution, the Court noted that this passage had "been interpreted to prevent a state from imposing unreasonable burdens on citizens ofother states in pursuit of their common callings within the state," and that the game laws as they existed posed no threat to the right to hunt elk. The Court also found that the state game laws did not violate the Equal ProtectionClause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since the laws' primary intent was the maintenance and improvement of the hunting conditions that drew the appellantsto Montana in the first place. Chief Justice Burger, in a concurring opinion, noted that the right of states to regulate and preserve wildlife for the common good had long been recognized in U.S. law.

Justices Brennan, Marshall, and White dissented, noting that states should only be allowed to discriminate against nonresidents if "the presence or activity of nonresidents was the source or cause of the problem or effect with which the state sought to deal." They added that, "the discrimination practiced against nonresidents bore a substantial relation to the problem they presented." They did not feel that the presence of nonresident hunters had caused anyextraordinary elk conservation problems for Montana.

Baldwin v. Montana Fish and Game Commission confirmed the ability of states to regulate hunting and fishing and environmental quality within theirborders, even if such regulation is applied unequally to state residents andnonresidents. Environmental and wildlife management legislation was judged to be both a substantial state regulatory interest and a means of preserving finite resources for the public good, and as such, is beyond the purview of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Related Cases


Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U.S. 518 (1978).

Supreme Court of New Hampshire v. Piper, 470 U.S. 274 (1985).

Supreme Court of Virginia v. Friedman, 487 U.S. 59 (1988).

Further Readings
Biskupic, Joan, and Elder Witt, eds. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1996.
Lund, Thomas Alan. American Wildlife Law. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1980.

 

[Tom]

Big Fin, I read that Baldwin stuff a long time ago. What I need is your reference that you don't want to give a google lesson on. Has anybody found that thing he is talking about?

I'm thinking just to go on vacation and hike around, like you guys hunt, and take pictures for free, then spend my hard earned money on a hunt, rather than a lottery hunt draw where I"m guaranteed on average to loose. I don't like the expensive lotteries with little return, which is what they are getting to be like more and more. You can read and read and cross check and cross check and find something good, or you can just hunt every weekend down here when you're off.

I might even skip the vacation hiking with pictures, instead of spending that money seeing your hills and trees, I could get a nice trophy down here.

Noharleyyet, have you seen our state record archery buck from a $50 public hunt? I've gotten record book animals on public hunts here, several of them. If you're into that, you can enter them in the books.

 

[elkfarmer]

the only thing i can say, is with the increase in prices of everything My colorado trips will be every 4 yrs instead of every other. It sucks but what can you do. I do believe that the states take a bigger hit than what is seen. They are probably reporting more income with higher priced taggs but all the other public services loose out. motels, gas, food, shops, hunting stores etc.. Really the only thing a NR can do is not go. and when you are to old to be able to go, you are going to wish you did reguardless of the cost.

 

[Moosie]

Elkfarmer.. problem is ... for everyone not going or putting in for the tag, Someone else is there happily ready to go. I plan to spend a few thousand in tags every year. Thats jsut what I do. Some people Smoke, go to bars, have fancy cloths, 'spensive vehicles, etc. I make sure I can pay for what I love, Family and hunting. I'll never be able to do all the hunting I want, but I'll do enough.

 

[BigHornRam]

S.S.,

Your momma's so fat, she put's mayonnaise on asprin.

 

[shoots-straight]

S.S.,

Your momma's so fat, she put's mayonnaise on asprin.

Thanks I feel better now.

I wanted to take a scalp, but the kill was not mine.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Oscar. There are enough folks now that can pay and do pay, so there are no tags going unclaimed due to the higher cost. I can either pay to go on private land here, or pay to go out of state. I hunt public land here for birds and varmints, occasionally for pig (but that is pretty unproductive and is really an excuse to get out and exercise ) and put in the few really good California hunts (Tule elk, desert bighorn, antelope, etc) even though I've never been drawn. Maybe now with the point system, I'll finally get a good tag here in my home state.

Basically, I'll spend a couple grand on an out of state hunt or two every year until I retire and can move to a state (or area with California) with better hunting ops.

 

[Tom]

Calif.Hunter, I forgot if I asked you about this or not.

http://www.outdoorjournal.com/wuhome/wubiggame.html

I did a trade with a lady in that years ago and I caught two brown trout I got mounted where she took me fishing. She got a hog and sika deer here.

She got bear and deer and hogs in that club and went on an elk hunt in Oregon and got one for a good price in that club.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Those folks jacked me around several years ago. I paid a few thousand dollars to join their previous venture, then they went and started a new one, requiring new initiation fees, etc. Naturally, since they had all the inside scoop on the leases and knew the property owners, they "stole" all the leased ranches from the group I had already paid to join!

It is also hard to get on the good ranches for deer season, any openers (quail, dove, big game, etc.) and only some of the ranches actually work to maintain huntable populations - for most, it is just extra money for the rancher anyway. It is a better deal, I think, if you are retired and can go anytime a particular ranch is open. Otherwise, I can spend the same amount of money and go out of state for better quality animals for about the same amount of money.

 

[Tom]

I was in a hunting club here in Texas that had a bunch of ranches we could hunt and several with lakes and rivers to fish too. It was not bad for me but it went bankrupt the year after I got out. The guy who ran it got sick and couldn't replace ranches as they were being lost and he was too bossy to let anyone else do it. After loosing my favorite turkey ranch and my favorite hog ranch, I got out. He was so sick, he died about a year after it went bankrupt. It was great for me for like 8-9 years though.

 

[coopaloop]

Always seems like the folks in the East or South with no public lands are always the ones complaining about all of our Pub land in the west. They complain while private interests make money off their lands and then come out here to vacation and hunt. Take it or leave it, it's the trade offs that we make our residence decisions on.

Tom, you seem to be confused by the fact that everywhere except Texas you pay for a tag to kill an animal based on population numbers. You are not paying for the right to be on the land. The critters are owned by the people of that state, if you want to kill Idaho animals that you do not "own", pay up.

Waterfowl are managed differently because they cross international lines. "Federal Elk Stamp"? WTF That's insane.

 

[Tom]

coopaloop, don't be surprised if you pay more and more federal access fees. In fact, maybe you should pay 20-30 times more than a non-resident or at least, each time you use it.

Where does it say the state owns them? I think its for all practical purposes like that, but I think of it as the state manages the animals for all the people. No one owns them until they legally tag them.

 

[mtmiller]

coopaloop, don't be surprised if you pay more and more federal access fees. In fact, maybe you should pay 20-30 times more than a non-resident or at least, each time you use it.

Tom could you give me an example where you, as a NR, pay more than I do for "federal access"?