Thirteen counties in Oregon have voted in favor of measures to begin negotiations on seceding from the state and joining neighboring Idaho.
The latest county to endorse the initiative was Crook County, where voters approved the “Greater Idaho Measure” on Tuesday. The proposal aims to move Oregon’s border approximately 200 miles to the west, which would place 14 counties and several partial counties under Idaho’s jurisdiction.
“The Oregon/Idaho line was established 163 years ago and is now outdated,” the movement’s website says. “It makes no sense in its current location because it doesn’t match the location of the cultural divide in Oregon.”
The organizers of the Greater Idaho movement argue that residents in eastern Oregon feel increasingly alienated by the state’s progressive policies, which they say contribute to high crime rates. Their website says becoming part of Idaho would offer lower taxes and improved representation and governance for the communities.
“We want an economy that is not held back by Oregon regulations and taxes, including environmental regulations,” Greater Idaho executive director Matt McCaw, said, according to the Daily Mail. “We’ll still have federal and Idaho regulations, and that’s plenty. Idaho knows how to respect rural counties and their livelihoods.”
As an PNW resident, I would like eastern Washington and eastern Oregon to merge into a single state, perhaps into Idaho, and let western Washington and western Oregon merge into another state.
Legislatively this is a bad deal. Two blue states become a red and a blue. Let Idaho properly compensate Oregon for the land, and let them also take over taking care of all those many miles of rural roads, civic services, emergency services and whatnot with 1/2 the tax base. I hope the folks in Eastern Oregon also understand that this means weed goes away, so the people in Ontario who have enjoyed all the Idaho cash should be prepared to switch gears. Oh, and Oregon Health Plan goes away. To my understanding, Idaho doesn’t have an offering like OHP.
One red and one blue is a wash. Let these people suffer.
Hell no what kind of cancerous divisive attitude is this?
It’s barely 50% of the voters that are voting for this and they only vote for it because they’ve been exposed to nearly four plus years of constant propaganda about it.
Instead of shooting your own foot to spite your hand, how about we stand together as oregonians and push back against the propaganda machine that’s actually driving these things?
Good luck. The propaganda machine is what they are addicted to. They won’t leave it or even listen to you contradict their clearly ignorant beliefs with cold hard peer reviewed facts. They don’t want to get along.
If they can rustle up enough votes and resources to split off, THEY are the ones shooting themselves in the foot… to spite their hand… which is not at all how that saying works.
They are welcome to try, fail, and ask to come back. But, like a shitty romantic partner, they better be on their knees when they ask, and be ready for a few changes in the relationship.
It’s you that loses as well as them that’s the point I’m trying to make. Giving a right wing state more voting power diminishes the voting power of Oregon.
You’re willing to harm part of your own body in order to spite the other part is what my poorly worded phrase is meant to convey. You’re willing to harm yourself in order to spite the eastern part of the state.
**Stop being so divisive, ultra nationalism isn’t what we need here. **
The fact that you keep referring to a large portion of your state as “They”, by overgeneralizing and dismissing is a classic symptom of nationalism. I already stated that it’s barely 50% want this, that means that slightly less than half of your fellow oregonians are still sane and you’re willing to condemn them…
Ironically this is the same kind of thought process that separatists have when it comes to their own form of nationalism.
All those flyers and advertisements going around point to comments like yours as a reason why they should go to Idaho because obviously the other side of the state doesn’t care about them and won’t listen to them. They quote news articles and online sentiment, which is real, tangible, evidence for these people.
You are literally part of their advertising, and are providing them with content to use. This sort of narrow-minded thinking is part of the problem and you can’t even see that…
Losing a blue to red is not a wash. If Idaho wants to the territory they can pay a fair price for it and the infrastructure on it.