Texans had been 'reining in' the FLDS via state laws

If the Fundamentalist LDS Church wanted to be left alone, it certainly seemed like its members picked the right place out on the west Texas prairie.

Isolated and without a planning and zoning ordinance in sight, the FLDS members were basically free to build their Yearning for Zion Ranch with minimal governmental oversight.

In fact, the FLDS were not even required to file for zoning permits. Deputy clerk Sarah McNealy of Schleicher County, where the ranch is located, said there are no rules or regulations of any kind regarding subdivisions for the county.

Texas Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, a real estate attorney who helped create the YFZ Land LLC to purchase the ranch, said he originally was led to believe the land would be used for a corporate hunting retreat.

"(But) even if they had disclosed (their intentions to build the ranch), under Texas law there's nothing to have prohibited them from moving forward with it," Darby said recently.

It's a west Texas thing.

People like to be left alone in west Texas, and the laws reflect that. Once property is legally acquired, governments have little power to interfere, explained Randy Mankin, editor of the Eldorado Success, the weekly newspaper in the closest thing approaching civilization to the FLDS compound.

But lack of oversight didn't equate to the actions of the FLDS going unnoticed.

And when local residents learned in 2004 of the sect's intent to build a religious compound, there were sufficient concerns to catch the attention of Texas State Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, who began looking for ways to rein in his FLDS neighbors.

"I wanted to make it unappealing to them," Hilderbran said. "I hoped they wouldn't stay."

As the compound population grew, Hilderbran wrote HB3006 in 2005 to copy Utah laws targeting polygamous groups. He wanted to amend Texas' marriage laws to protect minors and prevent polygamy, bigamy and interfamily marriage. But he also wanted to make sure FLDS children were receiving minimum standards of education and that the FLDS couldn't vote as a bloc to take over rural county and city governments. Schleicher County has a few more than 3,000 residents.

But his bill stalled in committee. Folks in east Texas complained the bill would prevent marriage between second cousins; home-schooling advocates didn't want more state intervention in curriculum; minority rights advocates worried about how the voting measures would affect other minorities elsewhere, Hilderbran said.