Dear Editor:
Rep. Jeff Hurd’s proposed GAME Act should concern anyone who believes that public decisions should be made through transparent, democratic processes.
Hurd’s proposal, a legislative bypass to the normal BLM process, would exchange roughly 2,179 acres of BLM land for about 2,091 acres of private land. The private owners each contributed $7,000 to Hurd’s campaign. Their ranch has spent heavily on lobbying for the exchange.
This raises a reasonable question: Why is Congress being asked to create
a special legislative pathway for a private land transaction involving major political donors, rather than allowing the normal administrative process to run its course?
The proposal’s supporters say the exchange would benefit the public by consolidating public lands and improving access, but they say congressional authorization is necessary because the normal BLM process is inconvenient.
Those arguments deserve public scrutiny. So does the larger principle.
We are increasingly seeing powerful people treat democratic procedures as obstacles rather than safeguards. Billionaire Peter Thiel has contributed millions of dollars to political candidates and conservative political organizations, including substantial support for JD Vance. At the same time, Thiel’s company Palantir has become a major federal contractor. Palantir itself acknowledges that 55% of its revenue comes from government clients.
These facts do not establish a quid pro quo, but they do illustrate why the intersection of political money, private interests and government power deserves close scrutiny.
The same principle applies when presidents attempt to redirect money Congress has appropriated for specific purposes. The Trump administration recently moved to transfer more than $52 million appropriated largely for Ukraine, European allies and Middle Eastern partners to Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru. Congressional committee leaders objected, saying the transfer violated statutory requirements; the administration defended the move as consistent with its own foreign-policy priorities.
These are very different situations. But they share a troubling theme: the people with the most power increasingly seem to regard democratic processes as something to work around when those processes are inconvenient.
Democracy is slow by design. It requires public scrutiny, competing viewpoints, hearings, oversight and votes. Those procedures can frustrate powerful people. That is precisely why we need them.
The question surrounding the GAME Act is therefore bigger than one land exchange. It is whether we still believe that public lands and public money should be governed through processes that give ordinary citizens a meaningful voice—or whether those processes become optional when wealthy interests and powerful politicians decide they are too cumbersome.
We deserve a representative who will put democratic accountability ahead of political access. Dwayne Romero would be that kind of representative. He would respect the processes that give citizens a voice, stand up to the influence of big money in politics, and work to make government more accountable to the people it serves—not to the wealthy and politically connected. If we want to restore faith in our democracy, we need representatives who believe that the rules should apply equally to everyone.
Lisa Tedder
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