Posted on 05/19/2021 7:14:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway
On Tuesday, voters in five counties in eastern Oregon urged county officials to begin to promote border relocation and joining Idaho.
The counties -- Malheur, Sherman, Grant, Baker and Lake -- join Jefferson and Union counties, whose voters applied to join Idaho last year, in their planned secession to what is being called "Greater Idaho."
While President Biden was favored 56 to 40 percent ahead of former President Donald Trump statewide, these five counties heavily favored Trump over Biden with up to 69-79 percent of the vote going to Trump.
The group, Move Oregon's Border for a Greater Idaho, is behind the effort. In addition to rural eastern Oregon, the planned Greater Idaho would also encompass large swathes of northeastern California.
Last year, a drive "to seek refuge from the blue states" was stalled after petitioners seeking signatures to place the item on the ballot said COVID-19 stopped their efforts.
"This election proves that rural Oregon wants out of Oregon. If Oregon really believes in liberal values such as self-determination, the Legislature won't hold our counties captive against our will," Mike McCarter, lead petitioner, said.
Last year McCarter said that the movement was a "peaceful revolution" and that the vote would be a crucial decision between rural and urban areas.
Any such change in the state's boundaries would require ratification by the Oregon Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats. From there Oregon and Idaho would have to sign a formal agreement, which will then have to be ratified by the U.S. Congress.
Congress has only allowed for such a change on three instances, the last in 1863 when West Virginia was created during the Civil War.
Future elections on similar ballot items will be held for residents of Harney County and Douglas County.
Here’s a map of Oregon, showing the counties:
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/or/programs/?cid=nrcs142p2_044022
As it stands, the plan is unworkable - so far. Just look at the counties voting for the idea and those not voting to join the idea.
Nice Post—
I don’t remember learning this in U.S. History in High School, and as far as learning U.S. History in the 1980’s in High School goes, I studied under the best.
Too bad there isn’t a Mr. K ping list.
Gundog answered your objection well—almost no one lives in the eastern half of the 2nd and the continued Californicationing of Oregon would allow the state to retain the new 6th district in 2030.
Math doesn’t seem to be a strong point of anyone now days. Given that five counties have voted for something that two others already had voted for, I would say seven have voted this way. Oregon only has 36 counties, but most of the population is located in five (three of which involve Portland).
They need to pick up another two for everything to be contiguous, and another 6 beyond that to not have Lagrande et al. in the North-east be cut off as a part of Oregon that is not contiguous with the rest.
It looks very doable to me.
Crook and Klamath would likely go.
I’d hope that the wave would eventually reach Coos (which I still consider myself a native of) and Curry, but Ashland would be a tough nut to crack is one doesn’t want exclaves.
Yes—post 35—that is what Mr. K taught. Too bad—post 28 makes a better story. My mind was rusty at a quarter centruy.
Sympathy for secession ran high in what Mr. K succeeded in producing for the class of ‘88. My debate partner and I used an exacto knife to liberate South Carolina from Dink’s classroom map, and carried it around for luck for the year. It did us well.
As I recall, one of the junior members of the team, Mrs. Clem’s younger boy, is now a State Senator for someplace around Salem. Unfortunately he has shifted left.
It seems that anyone I was close with in high school ended up in Oortland, and on the left. Conversely, quite a few people that I didn’t much care for ended up being conservative, and more scattered, geographically.
In re: “They need to pick up another two for everything to be contiguous, and another 6 beyond that to not have Lagrande et al. in the North-east be cut off as a part of Oregon that is not contiguous with the rest.......”It looks very doable to me.”
I am both wishing them all well but in practical terms skeptical of success - at this point.
Let’s all meet back here when the “we want to leave pack” grows sufficiently to THEN actually be doable.
What does the constitution say?
But that was a bit of a special case since the Legislature meeting in what is now WVA was recognized as the only legitimate legislature of VA—the rest of VA’s legislature having renounced membership in the Union.
Seriously doubt that Oregon’s legislature would agree to losing the eastern part of the state to Idaho.
Texas, according to the Treaty of Annexation can split into as many as five states without Congressional approval, but some say that that right/power ended when Texas was required to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.
Given where the economy ended up my class ended up scattered pretty well from Hell to breakfast regardless of political leanings—which could be seen at the time of graduation for those who had eyes (my commencement submission was not chosen: at some point in the past the valedictory and salutatory addresses had become regulated and [lack of] content mattered).
At my 10 year reunion, one guy had made it back in county, and some of the gals had managed to stay by marrying older guys. No one with a degree was any closer than Portland, and pretty well anyone who had gone to any place on par with or better than the U of O and out of state was still out of State. Many more have made it back in the following 2+ decades, but at least one that I am still in contact with who made it back not too long after the reunion is considering taking off to Idaho when family obligations cease to anchor locally.
Do you know the Whitty’s? Kevin was two years ahead of me, Jeff a year or two behind—and there were three older than Kevin. Both were active on the debate team, and I would have described them as centrists at the time. I’m guessing that the eldest may have been a year or two behind you. Jeff is an interesting piece of work, and arguably the most successful Marshfield Grad, at least by contemporary cultural standards.
I may have butted heads with Jeff Whitt’y on Facebook. They’ve always been a fixture in the county. I’ve never tried to figure out the family tree. Joe was Class of’ ‘79. His cousins(I believe) George ( Class of ‘80?) and Kelli((Class of ‘79?) are known to me. I believe that Joe’s older sister was an avowed communist in high school. Roy Culley asked him about that one day in class. I was never clear on the relationship of any of them to Jim and Nikki. I regarded them all as fairly bright, but congenitally wrong-headed.
George is an older brother—Jeff is the fifth of six and the clan was one of the more prominently Catholic families at MHS but of the liberal//St. Monica flavour—your bright but congenitally wrong-headed is largely on the money.
That said, Kevin was quite the card and undoubtedly I owe some of my fairly decent knowledge of Monte Python to him.
Between George and Jeff there are Grammy’s, Tony’s, and Emmey’s, including multiple in some categories, but Jeff has largely eclipsed his elder brother.
As I recall, one member of the clan was a reasonably successful Dem pol, and another then became a reasonably successful Pub pol, but I may be confusing them with a different clan. Whatever clan it was, I remember doing respite care for an older couple (not related to the family), I forget who, when I was about 14 or 15 and first twigging to a Southern Dem mindset-the couple couldn’t understand why the Pub had deserted the clan. At the time it seemed weird to me as it was obvious to me that the Dems were bankrupt. In my youth, I thought the Pubs were much better.
Except for Packwood. My family has never forgiven Packwood for taking out Wayne Morse, and didn’t like him even before that. Being pro-abort didn’t do him any good, but I suspect that taking out Morse of itself was basically unforgivable.
George was vehemently arguing the anti-Trump line with me shortly before the election. He was correct about the results, and probably wouldn’t care if the election could be shown to be a fraud. It bodes I’ll for the country that achieving the desired results in an election outweigh concerns for the integrity of the process.
George and Jeff both still show up for local discussions? Can’t they leave the county to die in peace.
Striving for results over integrity has a long history.
As I recall, it was a couple of the more conservative members of the MHS contingent at Boys’ State my year who teamed up with a couple of guys from another school for a successful ballot stuffing operation.
George appeared on a local outdoor radio program, of all things. I’m pretty sure he was in-studio. They spoke about his work. I think his family was friendly with the host. On FB, he was bitching that the people he worked with (artists) overseas thought very poorly of Trump. Like I care.
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