Greater Idaho movement: 13 counties in eastern Oregon have voted to secede and join Idaho
Greater Idaho movement: 13 counties in eastern Oregon have voted to secede and join Idaho
PRINEVILLE, Ore. (KTVZ) - On Tuesday, voters in Crook County passed measure 7-86, which asked voters if they support negotiations to move the Oregon/Idaho border to include Crook County in Idaho. The measure is passing with 53% of the vote, and makes Crook County the 13th county in eastern Oregon ...
On Tuesday, voters in Crook County passed measure 7-86, which asked voters if they support negotiations to move the Oregon/Idaho border to include Crook County in Idaho. The measure is passing with 53% of the vote, and makes Crook County the 13th county in eastern Oregon to pass a Greater Idaho measure.
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These people want to abandon everything that makes their lives great for... (checks notes) The rights to control women, marry children, and to burn crosses on their ethnic neighbors lawn.
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Mostly (and this is probably true for over 60% of Republicans), it's about defunding half of the government programs they rely on but don't realize it, sold to them through the euphemism of "tax cuts".
I think the right to control women is next on the list, but even then we see that even republican public opinion on abortions is stricter than the left's, but would actually prefer less extreme laws than what has been passed.
As much of a meme as it is, most rural religious folk aren't militant about marrying children and burning crosses. We hear about every instance of child marriage cause it sucks so much, and people have been openly, violently racist despite the law for centuries, all it takes is a town full of like-minded people.
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some 300 people live in some of those counties, which is like a city block in portland. If they want to be idaho so much why not just move there?
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I can really sympathize with these guys. I live in a blue dot in one of the reddest states in the country. I have been talking with my friends about doing this exact thing.
Technically this is not secession. It's partitioning. They want to partition themselves and join Idaho. Just like I'd love to partition my city away from the shit hole parasitic state it's attached to.
The state level representation just isn't there for them. They're so dramatically in the minority that they have no voice in state government at all. So changes are mandated to them, and they're disillusioned. They love their home and they want the government to recognize them.
Set aside the crazy bullshit they want. The grievance is legitimate, the government completely ignores their desires, they haven't been able to get the government to acknowledge that, and so they retaliate by saying they don't want to be a part of it anymore.
To be clear, there is no resolution for people in this situation. They have no control over the state government, no ability to change it. The only choice is to leave, and faced with moving or a long shot at leaving or taking your home with you, you'd choose to take your home, every time.
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Though it is only 53% of them that want this. Not that I think that should cancel the entire vote, but it should complicate the situation because a 6% difference shouldn't change the situation into one that 47% don't want.
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The grievance is legitimate, the government completely ignores their desires...
I see your point, but their "desires" are to oppress or kill the normal people, so I just don't see their grievances as legitimate. Conservatives are furious that they are unable to use legislation to further their conservative values of racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, transphobia, antisemitism and other conservative bigotry. There is simply no room in a modern culture for hate-based ideologies like conservatism.
We should not legitimize their harmful desires by recognizing their "grievances". Instead, we should marginalize hate by marginalizing the haters.
In short, fuck 'em.
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Well half of them at any rate. I guess the other half just get shit on? Usually these kinds of measures require more like 3/4 votes.
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This is why proportional voting is good. The best answer is to give them more accurate representation as part of oregon.
Without some trade for like a blue part of idaho this trade just stacks the deck one way. not 100% of the people in those districts want to leave and there's blue parts of idaho, why not trade those for red parts of oregon if it's "just partitioning" why abandon the 20-49% of whomever is in those red districts that would go straight back to being unrepresented
No, this is just right wingers wanting things 100% their way with no reasonable offer on the the table. There's no "legitimacy" here.
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So I am from WA and have been aware of this plan for a while.
This is one phase, and the next phase is to try to do this with as many Eastern WA counties as possible.
And to anyone wondering why this is happening, ya'll obviously are not from around the PNW.
Basically, Seattle, Tacoma and Portland are bastion of liberals and actual leftists. Bellevue is as well, but its only for corpos these days.
Nearly everywhere else west of the cascades is just barely more blue than red, and there are tons of smaller towns with Republican controlled county legislatures and town/city governments.
On the East of the Cascades, in the desert, basically, Republicans are generally in charge of everything that isn't a Reservation.
Its a bit more complex than this, but it is pretty much 'big cities' are blue, mid and small cities and everything else is red.
While I am against this succeeding, I do not think this is as cut and dry, obviously unconstitutional as some other posters here are making it seem.
It is not creating a new state. It is counties voting to leave one state and join another. To the best of my knowledge, this is completely unprecedented in the history of the US.
They've got a whole detailed plan for how to attempt to get this actually done. And they have a lot of judges, and now a popular mandate.
I honestly do not know how this will play out as it will likely hinge on various judiciaries and possibly executive (Governor) moves.
Yes, the state legislatures have to sign off on it and thats a big hurdle to jump, but it may actually be doable if enough political pressure is applied... especially if Trump wins.
It could possibly make it to the Circuit Courts and then the Supreme Court.
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While true, this is true in basically every area in the USA. If you have a tractor supply store near your house, you're in redneck territory. If you have a Lululemon, you're in blue territory.
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Pretty sure we have both where I'm at. Blue college city in a red state surrounded by farmland.
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You should see the UVA area, it's a big university next to incredibly rural areas so it has both nearby
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No Lululemon here, but there is a tractor supply store and two Rural Kings.
And yet we are a bellwether county. One of the ones at the top of the list with only one error.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_election_bellwether_counties_in_the_United_States
It's more complicated than you think.
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There is a legal way to do this:
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress
— Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1
Nebraska and South Dakota have a compact that's been approved by Congress that has land swap between the states based on where the river is when particular assessments happen. So land leaving one state and going to another state isn't unheard of. If you go look at NE and SD's border in the southeast corner of SD, you'll see the river and the border is pretty tight. Now compare that to states that have no such compact like Arkansas and Tennessee. River and the border are all kinds of messed up.
The thing is, both Idaho's and Oregon's State assembly will have to vote on it as you indicated. It's not up to the citizens to dictate when a state's border can be redrawn. Once Idaho and Oregon have a compact, they will need to send it to DC for Congress to vote on it. If it passes both the House and the Senate, the new compact can be enforced and the new borders drawn.
From what I've heard Oregon will not even begin to entertain this notion.
But yes, this is completely legal in the Constitution and we've done it before too. And we even have had the case where we took one state and split it into two happen before as well. Virginia and West Virginia. So we've used this part of the Constitution enough to know exactly how it needs to go down.
Is it going to go down? IDK. California said they were going to split up into 3, 4, 5 different States, not holding my breath on that one either. Would be pretty neat to redraw Idaho though. Never liked it's weird long edge on the west side. Now it'll look like someone giving the middle finger or something.
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Living in oregon I see value in letting them enter the “find out” portion of their fucking around. This portion of the state better aligns with idaho, and they’re a thorn in the side of the legislature… they walked out of session to block any laws they didn’t want to vote for, and when a law blocked these people running again, their districts elected their family members. This lets oregon be oregon and rural oregon be idaho… free of weed, abortion, and with a minimum wage of $7.25/hr.
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Will this change the number of electoral votes and house representative each state has? Because if not, this seems to benefit Oregon: concentrates Republicans in Idaho while lessening the impact of their vote.
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The number of electoral votes and the number of reps is based on population and is decided by the census.
So if this happens, at the latest, the votes would get fixed in 2031. But I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of the deal. Obviously those switching to Idaho want to bring their votes with them.
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It’s actually dumber than you describe. Everywhere west of the cascades is like 99% federal land
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Yea this might have something to do with it
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/24/people-rights-network-oregon-elections
At least 66 members of far-right group in rural Oregon standing for office
Revealed: anti-government People’s Rights Network, founded by Ammon Bundy, appearing to follow ‘entryism’ strategy
At least 66 members of an anti-government group founded by far-right militia figure Ammon Bundy have attempted to win local positions of influence in the Republican party in Oregon, the Guardian can reveal.
The candidates stood for Republican precinct committee person (PCP) slots in three central Oregon counties in this week’s elections, with some facing no opponent and thus winning their positions by default. The role of PCPs includes electing the executive of the county-level GOP apparatus.
The move is part of what appears to be a coordinated attempt to capture the local Republican party infrastructure, following a far-right strategy of “entryism” into more mainstream political bodies.
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Yeah, you Republicans are fucking dumb.
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The parts of Oregon wanting this are rabidly anti-tax. The instant they find out Idaho has a 6% sales tax they'll cry and come crawling right back.
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Conservatives are super pro-sales tax because it's regressive taxation. A common fake-libertarian argument is "we don't need income taxes, we can just have sales taxes".
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This is so damn odd, it's a state. Just move. It's not another country. Shit like this is what makes me think we should just abolish the states honestly. This mindset is weird
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Some people are too poor to move. Just move is an insane idea and we need to eradicate it.
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Just move is a perfectly legitimate idea when the only reason you want to move is because a political ideology. Not even political ideology wanting to impose your political ideology. If this was an economic issue I would never say just move. If this was a persecution issue I would never say just move. If this was any legitimate issue I would never say just move. However this is obviously, pathetically obviously, none of those things. They don't like the people around them. They're bigots. Bigots should move.
Frankly I think it's absurd that you're even suggesting that they have some kind of legitimate gripe. Equating their issue to anything legitimate is beyond ignorant.
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The cost of living is cheaper in Idaho! They’d just be giving up things like 1/3 the per student spending, physicians leaving to avoid idaho’s abortion laws, and face lower road spending, worse unemployment rights… I mean the benefits are right there. For the rest of us in Oregon. Sign here, press hard, 3 copies. Finally we can get rid of those walkout issues in the house.
Oregexit your hearts out. Don’t let the non gendered bathroom handle hit you on the ass as you go.
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Seems like a stupid vote then: choose to leave a state with at least some services to join one without, just to make it easier for a few landowners to extract resources without regard to the environment
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The idea of States and federal governments make no sense to me. Same country but different set of laws? Why even form a country?
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The United States formed as a group of semi-sovereign political entities that wanted to make their own laws, but needed a common defense, foreign, and trade policy to prevent recolonization.
The founding fathers knew that the country wouldn't agree on everything, so they set up a system where a lot of decisions would be made by more local officials.
Other federations work on the same principle. It is a lot easier to get political consensus in a smaller group than a larger one, so a lot of decisions are pushed to more local entities.
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I'm sure it won't happen, but there's a part of me that would just love to hear that when the negotiations get to Idaho, Idaho is just like "Nah, hard pass, we don't want you either."
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Idaho can't afford those leeches
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Yeah, this isn't greater idaho, this is even worse idaho.
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Just get rid of the electoral college already and stop giving these dipshit minorities a chance in hell of moving this country backwards.
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I know what you mean, but... phrasing?
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Fuck Idaho. How about instead we go back to Washington Territorial borders and have the Evergreen State annex their whole crooked potato patch. They can have statehood back when they learn to behave themselves.
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Just make all the racists move to Idaho proper. No need to change state lines.
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Have you been to East Oregon or Idaho? They're way ahead of you. Looking for an extremist compound and lax gun laws? Look no further. Good potatoes though...
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That will make Idaho look even stupider.
And it's already our stupidest-looking state.
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Florida would beg to differ.
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Florida has a big fat dick. Idaho has a pencil dick.
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It will look like the front view of a fist giving the middle finger. Which seems appropriate.
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A little narrow baby finger. Maybe it will make people think of Trump.
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So, this sort of thing requires both Congressional and state approval.
US Constitution, Article IV, Section 3.
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
Looking at the map, I'd guess that this isn't because of fundamental geographical differences, but because the current party split tends to be a rural-urban one. Here's a population density map for Oregon:
The more rural areas of Oregon, the counties without cities, are, based on current political coalitions, politically more similar to Idaho than to liberal coastal Oregon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System
The Sixth Party System is the era in United States politics following the Fifth Party System. As with any periodization, opinions differ on when the Sixth Party System may have begun, with suggested dates ranging from the late 1960s to the Republican Revolution of 1994. Nonetheless, there is agreement among scholars that the Sixth Party System features strong division between the Democratic and Republican parties, which are rooted in socioeconomic class, cultural, religious, educational and racial issues, and debates over the proper role of government.[1]
The Sixth Party System is characterized by an electoral shift from the electoral coalitions of the Fifth Party System during the New Deal. The Republican Party became the dominant party in the South, rural areas, and suburbs, and its voter base became shaped by White Evangelicals.[2] Meanwhile, the Democratic Party became the dominant party in urban areas, and its voter base diversified to include trade unionists, urban machinists, progressive intellectuals, as well as racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.
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A state isn't being formed: they're just moving the lines. So I don't think that comes into play.
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They're not, though. Not without the permission of the Oregon state government, the Idaho state government, and the US congress. That's the point. This is a tiny portion of the population of Oregon. They don't get to just decide they live in Idaho now.
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Wait 'till they find out it's all ohio already.
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It's all Ohio?
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Always has been.
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I don't get it, I would prefer my own Private Idaho.
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Bob won't stop until A River Runs Thru Phoenix
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There are lots of Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead-Ass Stupid.
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What the fuck?
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You know things are about to get spicy when a state/nation adds the prefix "Greater" to its name
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We all know it really means "Jumbo size Shitshow of Dumbfuckery"
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I'm trying to decide if this would be a net positive or negative.
Looking at the congressional districts for Oregon and Idaho it looks like about 5 or 6 districts that are all Republican controlled. Currently Idaho has two congressional districts that both lean heavily Republican. Shifting 5 or 6 Republican congressional seats from Oregon to Idaho I don't see making a significant difference to Congress.
Looking at things in the Senate both Idaho senators are Republican and adding more Republican districts won't really change that in any meaningful way. On the flip side both of Oregon's Senators are currently Democrats and I can't imagine removing a bunch of Republican voters from the state would do anything but reduce the chances of one of those Senate seats getting flipped.
I'm not really seeing any way in which this would help Republicans or hurt Democrats other than just by generally strengthening each party's hold on its respective state.
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Easy. If Oregon loses a bunch of population and land area to Idaho, then they will probably then make an argument for taking away electors from Oregon and give them to Idaho.
Republicans struggle to get popular vote but can get electoral college, slim margins. This would potentially increase their electoral college advantage.
Edit: it has been pointed out that that wouldn't even need to argue for it, the elector transfer would be automatic at 10 year interval.
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Exactly this. With the electoral college system, those republican voters count towards the population numbers to assign electors, but the state always goes blue. If these counties move to Idaho, those Republican voters help shift electors to Idaho, and will go red.
Sorry, the US election process is broken, and we don’t need more games by republicans to sneak in more electoral votes. I hope this measure never sees the light of day.
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It's been a while since I've looked at this but not only is such an arrangement impossible without federal input (as the comment from tal states) but I seem to recall seeing that a lot of the counties looking to join the greater Idaho thing are some of the ones most dependent on the Oregon state government for funding. If they did manage to leave then it'd actually probably be a net boon for Oregon in terms of state resources going to places where people actually live.
The resultant Greater Idaho though? Suddenly saddled with a bunch of counties that need a lot of help to maintain services and seemingly a general political attitude of the government shouldn't help people. In my personal opinion it'd turn pretty fucking distopian pretty quick, that is of course assuming that they could somehow get Oregon, Idaho and the federal government to agree to their scheme. I don't think it's going to happen, even if they can get some counties to sign off on it. But if they did the people of those same counties would likely come to regret it not long afterwards.
Also just as a brief note I think my information on this is like more than a year old and I don't think I could find it again to to quote it. So if someone has better/more up to date info that negates anything I've said feel free to post it.
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Exactly this. It's the same situation here in Washington. These people who want to leave Oregon and Washington for Idaho don't recognize how much of their infrastructure is paid for by the western sides of the states. Frustratingly, many of them somehow think that they are the ones sending their tax dollars to the "liberal" areas, when it is very much the other way around.
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Electoral college. Idaho always goes red, Oregon always go blue. Moving population from Oregon to Idaho transfers electoral votes from a blue state to a red state.
Whether it matters or not depends on whether it changes the tipping point state in any given election, which is hard to know in advance, but for the red team it is at worst identical to the current setup and at best a small boost to their chances in a presidential election. Conversely for the blue team it can either be meaningless or a slight negative.
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a shift of ~ 240k people from oregon to idaho would result in oregon going back down to 5 congressional districts, and idaho gaining one for three. so one electoral vote moves from a reliably-democratic state to a republican one. that one elector could very well swing a presidential election.
iirc, changes to state boundaries requires approval of both states and congress (and also the president, who would have to sign-off on the legislation passed there). oregon would never go for it--not entirely sure idaho would be on-board, either, even with the thought of gaining a congressional seat. providing state services and funding to that region would be a perpetual net-drain on idaho's economy.
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I say let's split oregon in twain, then let western Oregon join Washington and northern California to create an Ecotopia.
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cough Republic of California cough
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Let eastern Washington split off too and call them East and West Cascadia.
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Keep in mind the presumptive next step is reallocating electors to give Idaho more of them
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That was a good read
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Fuck votes. Let them buy their way out. Once a fair value for the property, infrastructure, and future revenue is determined that value becomes the baseline for negotiations and the auction can begin. Oregon loses some freeloaders, gains a windfall, and becomes even more blue.
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Not really a thing that can be done. The state legislature would have to approve it and so would Congress.
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I do like the idea of making Idaho more symmetrical.
Doesn't seem like this would have much of an impact federally, it's not like trying to form a new state where you'd get new Senators who agree with you. These people probably agree with Idaho Senators and not Oregon but their move wouldn't change the composition.
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Idaho potato
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The more crazed element of the Oregon left are so damn detacted from reality that this won't even ring alarm bells. Every left swing has a counter swing. Time to stop being divisive and look for common ground.
