Two Oregon Counties Vote to Consider Seceding, Joining Idaho
Residents of two rural Oregon counties voted in the Nov. 3 election to require their county officials to begin considering what would be involved in seceding from Oregon by moving neighboring Idaho’s border.
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Changing state borders is a complex task. The legislatures of both states and the U.S. Congress would have to consent.
But the victory of the grassroots group Move Oregon’s Border in Jefferson and Union Counties is just the beginning of what promises to be a long, involved process. The group also hopes to bring some counties in liberal California along with it to become part of Idaho, a state that has voted for the Republican candidate for president in every election since 1968. The group calls the proposed, expanded state Greater Idaho.
“The idea of joining Idaho is new to Oregon voters and they need more time to learn that Idaho taxes are lower, even with all taxes considered, and that Idaho law respects traditional values in many ways that Oregon law does not,” Mike McCarter, president of Move Oregon’s Border, said in a statement.
“The friction between conservatives and the Left in Oregon and California will continue to increase as their expectations diverge, so moving the border will eventually be seen as the necessary, peaceful solution to this problem. The reaction of Oregon government to the execution of Trump supporter ‘Jay’ Danielson in Portland shows that they will not protect people who are not on their leftist team. This is not a sustainable situation.”
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As of press time, the voters of two Oregon counties approved the ballot question, while voters in two other counties rejected it.
According to the Oregon secretary of state’s website, ballot measures were approved in Jefferson County (Yes 50.9 percent; No 49.1 percent) and Union County (Yes 52.4 percent; No 47.6 percent). The propositions were defeated in Douglas County (Yes 43.27 percent; No 56.73 percent) and Wallowa County (Yes 49.54 percent; No 50.46 percent).
Unfortunately neither Jefferson County or Union County border with Idaho. or each other. And Douglas County borders the Pacific Ocean!
Wallowa County does border Idaho but needed another 0.46+% to get a majority.
Wallowa and Union to border each other so if Union can persuade Wallowa to the divorce then there would be a connection to Idaho for both of them.
I wish them well.
I wish we could move the whole Idaho border to the cascades. I love Washington geographicly, I grew up here and I don’t want to leave, but I hate it politically. I keep looking at properties in Idaho and trying to figure out how I’d make a living.
I think if we allocated state senators by county instead of population it would help keep the crazy at bay. It just feels too far gone.
Well, the Left are always saying the conservative rural areas are a net drain on Medicare, welfare, etc. So then, why wouldn’t a state be happy to see such areas become someone else’s problem?
Because the beast requires submission? Just knowing you don’t like them drives them nuts. You have to be controlled.
That, and the smarter ones know it’s a load of crap. No matter how much they snark about how ‘rural hicks’ being a drain on benefits, the urban cores are a MUCH larger draw down.
When did running to Idaho become the solution to everyone in other states? How bout stay where your at and kicking a few asses into shape. I don’t think dividing into smaller and smaller enclaves is going to be a winning strategy.
Look at it this way. Having E. Oregon join you will help you preserve your state from the ongoing Californiafaction centered in Boise.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that requires a state to be contiguous. While currently there are no enclaves, it certainly would be constitutional for them to be created. And actually there do exist some parts of states (WA comes to mind) that can only be reached via another country.
There are plenty of enclaves in other parts of the world; I grew up near one that actually is a collection of enclaves and second order enclaves (bits of country A inside country B inside country A). Sometimes they become the location of political trouble, when there is trouble anyway, but often they are just fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle
I’d prefer the more ambitious State of Jefferson idea. It would be a tough sell but having more Senators and electoral votes would be worth it.
I’ve long thought that there should be a constitutional mechanism in place that when an urban area reaches a certain critical mass in population that it should be required to become it’s own city-state.
Such a plan could work by allocating such cities a limited version of the things allocated to a full state. As an example, such a city state would keep it’s Congressional representatives, but only be afforded one Senator.
A similar approach could be used in doling out presidential electors as well. Such a city state would be apportioned a percentage of the total state’s electors, with the rest remaining with the rural areas, small cities/towns, and exurban areas.
Such city states would also be on their own for purposes of state-level taxation and administration.
It seems very clear to me that there is a fundamental problem in America with large cities being able to effectively control entire states, (NYC, NY; Chicago, IL; LA/Sacramento/San Francisco, CA; Denver, CO; Atlanta, GA, etc.).
Of course, this is just a notional, high-level concept, and one that probably has reasonable criticisms, but frankly, it would go a long way to dealing with the animosity between rural areas and urban ones.