It appears things are moving along toward several East Oregon counties joining Idaho:
Greater Idaho told DailyMail.com they are confident that as more western Oregonians hear about the measures they will support letting the eastern part of the state go, and cited a 2022 poll which supported their prediction.
‘The poll showed that voters don’t want to hold counties captive that don’t consent to Oregon government. It showed that only 3% of the voters of northwestern Oregon think that keeping these counties captive is worth the annual cost to the state budget.’
‘And it showed that many would welcome the chance for western Oregon to make its own decisions without interference and obstruction from eastern Oregon. Already, 68% of voters want their state government to look into moving the state line.’
Only 3% of the people in the progressive area want to keep the rebel counties! 68% of the entire state are fine with it. There is not much more that I can envision being a serious blockage to the change. In my mind, it was always going to boil down to the socialists and communists in the large population centers wanting to retain power over the uneducated, in-bred, country bumpkins. If the report is true then I was very mistaken.
Southwest Oregon, and eastern and southwestern Washington need to get in on this action.
And Northern Nevada. I actually had an exchange with the Greater Idaho people. The are reluctant to pursue that since they suffer from the common Republican fantasy that Nevada is a swing state. In reality the Democrats in Clark County will steal whatever they need to get what they want.
What people say in response to polls, and how they vote, are sometimes two very different things.
On a related note, I had a recent trip with a segment through northern California. Lots of support there as well, apparently, for splitting from the rest of the state.
Leftists need to be encouraged in their belief that rural areas are a fiscal drain. It is complete BS but they believe it. It is easy enough to come to that conclusion if you do static analysis on state budgets which is what they do. However, when you do a dynamic analysis that involves ending the exploitation by the cities and a pro-growth policy taking off in the rural areas, the balance flips.
It’s good that people are seeking freedom. But changing the name on a land mass is going to do little.
The 15-20 large cities that run this bitchy little democracy are still not going to allow rural areas to return to a resourced based economy. And right now eastern Oregon a net drain because you can’t log, mine, or plant things without their greedy bureaucratic hands in the middle of it.
Call it Idaho all you want. And when the federal government turns it all into a wildness area of environmental concern? It’s just going to be Idaho’s welfare bill.
Which Idaho is going to have to ask the federal government to help pay.
The problem is not the state. It’s that the states are no longer united against tyranny. And we the people have forgotten how to fight.
Right now, eastern Oregon has a lot of natural resources they can’t use because the enviro-weenie bureaucrats in northwestern Oregon say they can’t. If they become part of Idaho, Idaho will say they can and they will become a net positive for the economy of their new State.
Could the fed.gov pull the plug on that? Sure. But the fed.gov would have to take the action to do that, and then the fed.gov would have to pay for it.
It sounds like a distinction without a difference, but in this case that subtle distinction is important: Under the current setup, Salem and Portland et al prevent eastern Oregon from using their resources; the fed.gov has no part in it, and so Salem and Portland et al own the economic fallout. Under a “Greater Idaho” setup, the fed.gov would have to actively assume full ownership of the economic fallout of that prohibition.
My prediction would be that unless someone at the EPA gets a bug up their @$$, the fed.gov will choose to ignore eastern Oregon (western Idaho?) starting to develop their resources rather than step into that quagmire. (Plus, there’s always a solid possibility of a Republican-run federal administration which might support their development; there’s almost zero chance of a Republican-led State bureaucracy in Salem.)
Not surprised by the poll results. While some of the Leftists in Salem and Portland are control-freaks who want to lord over the rural people, most of them see the conservative State Representatives and Senators as hindrances to their Leftist agenda.
The Left in Oregon has long seemed to have a “minority complex” when it comes to California; they don’t just want to become California, they want to out-Left California. (The phrase, “race to the bottom,” comes to mind, and the Oregon Left means to win.) If conservatives from eastern Oregon are holding them back, most of them would gladly shed that “excess drag” and race full-bore into enacting their socialist utopia.
I say, let them.
I also say, they lose two Representatives in Congress, as those two seats will necessarily follow the population of eastern Oregon and join Greater Idaho, and will no longer be gerrymandered with sections of the Portland-Metro area to keep them blue. This will result in a small red-shift in the national House, but likely not change much in the Senate.
I’m all for this. 🙂
Just wait until Greater Idaho decides to exercise the Texan option and split itself into four parts, which just happen to correspond with old Idaho, the former eastern and southwestern Washington, the former eastern and southwestern Oregon, and north California plus north Nevada. The union could use the great states of Franklin, Jefferson and Adams.
“In my mind, it was always going to boil down to the socialists and communists in the large population centers wanting to retain power over the uneducated, in-bred, country bumpkins.”
And you were correct. It’s just that the specific group of socialists and communists are the ones in power, not the population as a whole.
Not going to happen. ANY change to the current status quo has to be approved by the legislatures of both states AND by Congress. Such a change would upset the apple cart politically. That approval would have to come in the form of legislation…which would have to be signed by the governors/POTUS. What are the odds of that. It’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Odds are this is a distraction. Ask what are they trying to distract you from.
What the voters want and what the politicians they elected want are two different things. Politicians want power. Allowing the rural areas to secede reduces their power. The only way they’ll allow that is if (1) it becomes the _one_ issue of overriding importance to their constituents, and (2) if the constituents accept no further excuses. #1 is pretty unlikely. #2 is damned near impossible given an issue complex enough to confuse the dull-witted, and the constitutional requirements for revising state borders seem to me to supply all kinds of ways to sabotage the process while pretending to be working towards it.
I know this is an older thread.
In the end the change would have to be negotiated and approved by Congress.
The question is Congress, more specifically who controls both houses. The one thing I can see holding it up is apportionment. I do not know how much population will move from OR to ID, but it will take with it one or more congressional seats and, critically, electoral college votes.
OR will be a far more “blue” state, but it will matter less as the net pull in a presidential election would be diminished.