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Director of the Office of State Lands & Investments v. Merbanco6/6/2003
ion, after such delay (not less than the time fixed by congress) in portions at proper intervals of time, and at such minimum prices (not less than the minimum fixed by congress) as to realize the largest possible proceeds.
After adoption of the Wyoming Constitution, Congress passed the Act of Admission of the State of Wyoming, 26 Stat. at Large 222, ch. 664 (1890), admitting the State of Wyoming into the Union and granting to it Sections 16 and 36 of every township in Wyoming, including the Teton Village school section, for the support of the common schools with the condition that these sections "be disposed of only at public sale."
Pursuant to this grant, Wyoming received 3,543,820.62 acres of land for the purpose of supporting its public schools. See Office of State Lands and Investments Annual Report at 25 (2001). In 1921, the constitution was amended to combine the two land boards into a single "board of land commissioners." With that amendment, the public auction requirement of Article 7, Section 13 was imported into a new Article 18, Section 3 and broadened to apply to "the sale of all lands" rather than just to "school lands" as provided in the original constitution. The amendment resulted in the two sections of Article 18 utilizing different language for the imposition of the public auction-Section 1 referring to disposal and Section 3 referring to sales.
The challengers' argument rests on a simple proposition: The Wyoming Constitution requires a public auction for all "sales" and "disposals" of state lands, and an exchange is a form of sale or disposition; therefore, exchanges are subject to the public auction requirement. In our view, the issue is not so simple. The two constitutional provisions are not identical but rather contain different terms of uncertain meaning which are susceptible to incongruent interpretation. Neither provision mentions exchanges of school lands.
The State of Wyoming, through the legislature and the board, the entity constitutionally charged with the responsibility of managing school lands, historically has not interpreted the constitution as requiring public auctions for the exchange of school lands. On the contrary, the legislature has specifically authorized exchanges of school lands for private lands of equal value, and the board has adopted regulations specifying the procedures to be followed to assure lands of equal value are obtained by the state in the course of these exchanges. Pursuant to these statutes and regulations, the state has accomplished the exchange of thousands of acres of school lands over the course of the last century.
The statutes contain detailed and thorough procedures and requirements that must be followed before school lands can be exchanged, with the obvious purpose of assuring that the state and the permanent school fund receive fair value in return for any lands conveyed to a private party. Those statutes provide:
§ 36-1-107. Exchange of state-owned and privately owned lands
The state of Wyoming is also authorized to exchange state-owned lands for privately owned lands.
§ 36-1-110. Authority of director to effect and complete exchanges
The director is hereby authorized and empowered, subject to the approval of the state board of land commissioners, to effect and complete such exchange of state-owned lands for federal-owned lands; and also to effect and complete such exchange of stateowned lands for privately owned lands; and to do any and all things necessary or required to be done by the state of Wyoming in order to enable said state to comply with the provisions of said Taylor Grazing Act and other acts of congress auth
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