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.
I don’t blame’em.
I don’t get it, I would prefer my own Private Idaho.
Bob won’t stop until A River Runs Thru Phoenix
There are lots of Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead-Ass Stupid.
Idaho potato
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.
You know things are about to get spicy when a state/nation adds the prefix “Greater” to its name
We all know it really means “Jumbo size Shitshow of Dumbfuckery”
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.
A state isn’t being formed: they’re just moving the lines. So I don’t think that comes into play.
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.
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.
They’ll swallow a 6% sales tax in exchange for joining
the white ethnostate of their dreamsidaho.It’s so fucking weird anyone would want to move to Idaho.
Or they will just shop in Oregon.
Most of them will have to drive hours, western oregon is about 4 hours+ across
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”.
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.
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.
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.
It’s always a little odd seeing the people who rely on the benefits of bigger government constantly doing what they can to have a smaller government.
they also rely on those big cities they hate so much to provide some of the funding for the services and infrastructure they no-doubt take for granted.
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.
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.
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.
That assumes that the population of these counties is significant compared to the cities though, right? These seem to be the lowest population-density counties in the state.
To the extent they contribute to Oregon’s electoral votes, they would then contribute to Idaho. The fact they are relatively lower population can still move the votes. Have a hard time digging up nice easy data, but they have 8 votes today and even a relative minority of voters going could change that from 8 votes all for democrats to 2 or 3 votes for republican. As someone else said, rinse and repeat for Washington state. Then, off to take part of california to make Nevada a sure thing for republicans and give nevada more votes. Also probably poking all over to erode blue states, carving out some of viginia between kentucky and west viginia, and illinois, colorado, and minnesota are also ripe targets. So Republicans can free up some of those electoral votes that are buried under blue, and press an advantage where they already overcome the popular vote with electoral votes a lot of time.
This is a strategy that won’t work for democrats, as the democratic regions in red states tend to be surrounded by a sea of red, with no logical way to ‘free’ those votes for the benefit of the democrats. They would instead have to push for proportional electoral college votes within their states or to go popular vote nationwide.
So on the one hand, the secession strategy shouldn’t work, as it is explicitly unconstitutional, but the GOP would really want it to happen, and they might be able to make it so. The converse strategies may be constitutional, but would require people to approve of it that would be explicitly undermined by it.
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.
I say let’s split oregon in twain, then let western Oregon join Washington and northern California to create an Ecotopia.
No let’s not have the Bay area dictate Oregons laws.
Not far enough north for them to be allowed to join.
How is Redding and Jefferson going to tilt Western Oregon towards sanity in this scenario?
cough Republic of California cough
Let eastern Washington split off too and call them East and West Cascadia.
Keep in mind the presumptive next step is reallocating electors to give Idaho more of them
That was a good read
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.
Just make all the racists move to Idaho proper. No need to change state lines.
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…
Wait 'till they find out it’s all ohio already.
It’s all Ohio?
Always has been.
How about Lesser Idaho.
How about Nodaho.
No map. It’s just a lack of Idaho.
Youdaho
That is all
Yomomdaho
WEdaho
Yeah, you Republicans are fucking dumb.
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?
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.
What do they want that Idaho can provide that Oregon can’t? Some people have to flee entire states over abortion laws for lifesaving medical procedures and they’re told stuff like “well if you don’t like it just move”.
I appreciate that. And this is a great example to whip out when those idiots say shit like that. Obviously moving isn’t an option for most people and for those whom it is, they likely have.
What exactly they want isn’t important, just that it’s very much the opposite of how the state is being run. Admittedly some of the demands fall under crazy bullshit, but the central issue is agency. Politically speaking they have very little, and this is the one lever left to them to pull.
Imagine you’re on a train of trolleys, and every time it comes to a point where a direction could be chosen, every car votes and consistently the ones at the back are out voted by the other cars. You can’t get off and buy another ticket. But you might be able to detach the cars.
Furthermore, reorganization like this should be done far more frequently than it’s being done. Why shouldn’t we allow disparate peoples of similar opinions vote together and govern each other? Why are we locked in to the lines on a map, the last major change of which happened in 1867. Since then, the borders have remained relatively unchanged.
Not only should they, a group of people I likely hold only one fundamental belief in common with, not be afforded some self governance?
Imagine you’re on a train of trolleys, and every time it comes to a point where a direction could be chosen, every car votes and consistently the ones at the back are out voted by the other cars. You can’t get off and buy another ticket. But you might be able to detach the cars.
So, you’re describing the 47% who do not want to partition?
The ability to be more open about being white supremacist garbage. Idaho is a dumpster fire - the state is suffering shortages of medical professionals because of the GQP.
Imagine scraping the money together to move from Idaho to Oregon to protect your health and bodily autonomy, then 300 of your neighbors get together and decide, nope, you’re still in Idaho.
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.
This is caused by Gerrymandering and antidemocratic voter suppression. But Republicans don’t want to fix those issues because they’d be a regional party overnight limited to just the south.
This is something both parties are guilty of. Neither is all that interested in fixing it until they’re the victims of it.
This doesn’t get fixed with a two party system.
Ah yes, those vote suppressing Democrats…
I do think there needs to be a dissolution of the parties, but accusing both sides of being the same is not valid nor useful in the state (lol, country?) that we currently live in.
I’m not saying both sides are the same. I’m accusing two different political parties of employing the same shitty tactics, which they most definitely are.
Is one party more guilty of it? Sure. But denying that the Democrats are gerrymandering is delusional.
Oregon’s 2021 congressional map received an F from the gerrymandering project for giving one party a significant advantage.
https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card?planId=rec6qj1vAOKsBnXnu
Drawn and enacted exclusively by Democrats.
Don’t lie to yourself. They’re still fucking politicians.
All governments are run by politicians, by definition. Are you in favor of an anarchist power vacuum that will instantly attract people wanting to set up their own terrible governments?
Please show me a better map for Oregon districts
There are several available at the link I shared. It might be more than one click but, because you’re presumably able to read, a big smart guy like you should have no trouble finding them.
I live in a blue dot in one of the reddest states in the country.
Austin Texas.
Or Lawrence, KS, or Lincoln, NE, or Atlanta, GA
Omaha is the blue dot in NE. I’m from Nebraska. Even though it might be liberal, Lincoln is definitely a Big Red dot.
Or Asheville NC
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.
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.
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.
Removed by mod
There are natural resources out there that the land owners want to extract. Washington’s and Oregon’s environmental law is far more stringent than Idaho’s.
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They probably own farms
Slight addendum: they own small parcels of land surrounded by public land that pay miniscule fees to use as they please for ranching.
More proof that mostly Republicans use welfare services, living off the US government.
