The Sagebrush Rebellion was “a populist protest against public land reform supported by western citizens, the natural resource industries, and local and state governments in the West” (131). The movement was one of the first populist environmental movements after WWII, and often, its opposition to environmental reform was primarily framed in the language of state’s rights. During this time, environmental reform took the shape of “reform liberalism” which “emphasized the role of government in protecting the public interest” (125). Anti-environmental reformists believed that this approach of environmental reform negated the right of the state to utilize the land for economic development, arguing that legislation such as the Wilderness Act grossly increased the powers of the federal government. Sagebrush was ultimately undermined by oppositionists who tied the movement to industry and special interest groups looking to develop the land economically.
The Wise Use movement, however, was different from that of the Sagebrush Rebellion. Wise Use arose in resistance to the federal government’s public land management in the 1980s and early 1990s. The main difference between the groups was that the Wise Use movement used strategies of the New Right to gain momentum. Wise Use “fostered citizens’ involvement and emphasized their claims to constitutional rights,” which deflected critics of the Sagebrush Rebellion who argued that the Sagebrush’s motives were primarily industry based (138). Within this alternative approach, Wise Use likened positive rights-based claims to individual liberty and property, aligning it to the rights-based politics central to the rising modern conservatism.
While neither group was arguably very successful in shaping policy, battles over public lands in the West contributed to the shaping of the new right in two dominant ways. First, the rise in concern over land rights shifted the political leaning of the region, significantly influencing the position of the Republican party. The West, which had been primarily Democratic between the 1930s and 1960s, began to shift towards the political Right during the 1970s in part because of their disdain for the federal government’s designation of wilderness areas. This transition was crucial for the Republican party’s Senate majority in the 1980s. Secondly, mirroring the strategy of Wise Use, which shifted attention away from old issues such as state’s rights and towards positive rights-based claims of individuals repositioned, the New Right was able to position themselves as a party that represented public interest. Additionally, the strategy allowed the New Right to shift away from reactionary anti federal politics towards a positive politics that emphasized individual rights.
Will Wright 