Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff issued a joint response April 30 to accusations by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that Arizona and Utah have turned a “blind eye” to polygamy.
Reid told a University of Utah radio station that Texas, by recently raiding the compound of a polygamist sect, “is doing what Utah and Arizona should have done decades ago.”
The Nevada Democrat’s comments referred to the raid earlier this month on the Yearning for Zion Ranch by Texas authorities and child welfare officials who were investigating physical and sexual abuse of children at the compound.
Deseret News, a Salt Lake City newspaper, reported that Reid also said he was “embarrassed” for Utah and Arizona and that Utah officials were “afraid” to take on polygamists.
In a prepared statement, Goddard and Shurtleff said they were appreciative of Reid listening to their concerns about polygamous communities in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, but that Reid’s comments were “apparently made without full information about the significant progress” made by the two states in recent years.
“Over the last five years, we have convened meetings of Arizona and Utah law enforcement, state and local service agencies, advocacy groups and members of the community to find better ways to protect victims of domestic violence and child abuse,” the letter states.
“We have learned that outreach and support to victims must address the barriers unique to the polygamous communities such as geographic isolation, historical disputes with government, transportation barriers, lack of access to victim services and legal assistance.”
The letter also noted both states have child bigamy laws to “prosecute crimes that involve plural marriages of underage girls to much older men.”
Arizona Rep. David Lujan has proposed a bill this year that would bolster Arizona’s laws against bigamy, but that bill has stalled. A similar proposal last year, which included provisions regarding polygamy, failed to advance through the Legislature.
This week, Shurtleff told the Deseret News that the Yearning for Zion sect “wouldn’t be in Texas if we didn’t kick them out of Utah” and called Reid’s comments “completely wrong” and “ignorant.” Shurtleff also noted Nevada has polygamy problems and that polygamy leader Warren Jeffs performed “child-bride marriages” in Nevada, according to the newspaper.
Still, Goddard and Shurtleff’s April 30 letter thanked Reid for working to secure meetings between Arizona, Utah and Nevada authorities and the U.S. Department of Justice to discuss federal involvement in prosecuting polygamy-related crimes.