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Another rural county has voted to break off from blue-state Oregon and join its red-state neighbor by reconfiguring the state border, the latest victory for the grassroots movement called Greater Idaho. Crook County voters approved by 53-47% the Greater Idaho resolution asking if they want to enter into negotiations to relocate the border, according to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election. The vote made Crook the thirteenth county to approve the measure, a proposal rooted in frustration with the Democrat-controlled Legislature dominated by Portland and coastal lawmakers with little knowledge or appreciation of the priorities of eastern residents.

A 13th county in Oregon passed a measure that would allow the county to move forward with efforts to secede from the state and join the Republican-governed state of Idaho. Voters in Crooks County passed Measure 7-86, also known as the “Greater Idaho” measure, 53 percent to 47 percent on Tuesday, according to the Central Oregon Daily News. Greater Idaho Executive Director Matt McCaw issued a statement that there was “no excuse left” for the Oregon Legislature or Gov. Tina Kotek (D) to “continue to ignore the people’s wishes.” “The voters of eastern Oregon have spoken loudly and clearly about...

Thirteen fed-up counties in liberal Oregon have voted in support of measures to start negotiations to secede from the state and join conservative Idaho. Crook County became the latest to approve the 'Greater Idaho Measure' following a vote on Tuesday. The proposal seeks to move the Oregon border 200 miles to the west, meaning that 14 counties and several partial counties would fall under Idaho state lines. Organizers behind the Greater Idaho movement say east Oregonians are being alienated by the state's progressive policies which they blame for high crime rates. They claim a move to Idaho would allow residents...

A central Oregon county scheduled an election to test support for becoming part of Idaho on Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after final results from a May election in an eastern Oregon county showed a victory for supporters of the “Greater Idaho” movement. The razor-thin vote in Wallowa County means that 12 Oregon counties have voted to move toward a long-shot effort to redraw the state’s boundary with Idaho that would turn close to 400,000 Oregonians into Idahoans and give the Gem State control of almost two-thirds of Oregon’s land. The next to vote is Crook County, after the...

The Idaho House passed a resolution on Wednesday to begin talks with the Oregon Legislature about potentially expanding the Idaho border into eastern Oregon.Such a resolution has its roots in the Greater Idaho movement, which seeks to absorb 11 Oregon counties, or 63 percent of the state’s landmass, into Idaho. The rationale for such a move is that the leftist residents of northwest Oregon — Portland, Salem, Eugene — control the politics of the state, and therefore rural, conservative residents in eastern and southern Oregon are effectively silenced on matters of state governance.“The aspirations of Portland-area and northwestern Oregon voters...

"NewsNation) — Conflicting views on crime and social policies are creating a bigger divide between big cities and rural America, sparking efforts to secede. Among the largest pushes across the country, counties in Eastern Oregon are looking to be annexed to Idaho as a part of the Greater Idaho movement. Oregon state Sen. Dennis Linthicum (R-Klamath Falls) introduced the Greater Idaho bill in January in hopes that the eastern portion of the state could be annexed to Idaho. The bill requested “discussion between Oregon and Idaho governments regarding relocation of Oregon and Idaho border,” according to the bill text. Oregon...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Senate Joint Memorial 2, also known as the Greater Idaho bill, was introduced on the floor of the Oregon legislature by Republican state Senator Dennis Linthicum of Klamath Falls on Jan. 10. The bill requests “discussion between Oregon and Idaho governments regarding relocation of Oregon and Idaho border,” according to the bill text. Voters in 11 eastern Oregon counties have already approved ballot measures indicating their support for joining the State of Idaho. “Eastern Oregon is culturally, politically, economically much more similar to Idaho than it is to western Oregon,” said Matt McCaw, a Grater Idaho...

Two more conservative-leaning counties in eastern Oregon, and one politically split county in California, have voted to begin the process that could lead to secession from their respective blue states. On Nov. 8, Oregon’s Morrow County passed the Greater Idaho proposal with 60 percent of the vote and Wheeler County with 59 percent. A similar measure in San Bernardino County, Calif., passed by a narrow margin, 51.3 percent to 48.7. “These are solutions they want their elected leaders to look into,” said Matt McCaw, spokesman for the Greater Idaho Movement based in Oregon. “We think it makes sense to move...

A secessionist movement in eastern Oregon fed up with the state's liberal policies gained more steam after Tuesday's midterm elections. Two Oregon counties, Morrow and Wheeler, voted to ask the Legislature to redraw the state's border and let them join conservative Idaho. Greater Idaho is behind the drive to convince state legislatures to move the Oregon/Idaho border to make conservative counties of Oregon into counties of Idaho. The group also is advocating for portions of southeastern Washington and northeastern California to join Idaho, which it said aligns more with the region's conservative values.

Democrat Tina Kotek has won the race for Oregon governor, defeating Republican Christine Drazan. It was a hard-fought and expensive win by Democrats, who have a huge party registration advantage in Oregon but faced strong headwinds this year amid voter frustration at problems including homelessness, violent crime and lackluster delivery of government programs and services. ­As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, Kotek was ahead of Drazan by 30,000 votes, the state’s tally showed. And Multnomah County had yet to tabulate results from 80,000 ballots it has logged as received by 10 a.m. Wednesday, state and county websites showed. With Multnomah voters...

Another county in eastern Oregon voted to approve a measure to join the "Greater Idaho" movement in response to progressive policies in Portland. Sixty-three percent of voters in Harney County supported the non-binding Measure 13-18 as of Wednesday morning, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported. It's the only countywide vote this year... ...Harney County is just the latest of seven other counties in Oregon to vote on measures to move the state line. The county court must start holding meetings about the border's relocation after Measure 13-18 is voted in. Regardless of the county vote, the U.S. Congress and Idaho State...

Voters in Oregon’s Harney County will be asked in November to decide on a “Greater Idaho” proposal, potentially allowing the county and several others in Oregon to join the neighboring state, according to a group that has collected signatures in support of the initiative.Citizens for Greater Idaho’s website said on July 19 that the group has obtained enough signatures.The group said the proposal would “extend Idaho’s jurisdiction over rural, conservative counties of eastern and southern Oregon” and are also “intended to put pressure on the state legislatures of Oregon and Idaho to negotiate an interstate compact to relocate their common...

The American Civil War is often thought of as being the deciding historical factor putting to rest any future ambition of individual or groups of states wanting to secede from the union. Well over a century later, the idea of secession appears far from settled in the minds of millions of Americans—Democrats and Republicans alike. In fact, secession mindedness has been gaining ground following the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, which showed the nation to be more politically divided than ever. A newly released poll found that two-thirds (66 percent) of Republicans living in southern states, including Texas and Florida,...

Seven rural Oregon counties have voted in favor of an effort to become part of Idaho, and organizers of the Greater Idaho movement say more counties could soon have the option on the ballot. "We want out from underneath Oregon's governance and go underneath Idaho's governance, which we tend to match up better with, as far as our values go," the group's president, Mike McCarter, told Insider. "Now for 20 years-plus we've been trying to change the makeup and improve the makeup of the Oregon Legislature, but when you haven't got the vote, there's not much you can do about...

An Idaho woman who was charged earlier this week with murdering her two children was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial on Thursday, according to multiple local news outlets. Lori Vallow Daybell was charged with two counts of murder, three counts of conspiring to commit murder, and grand theft by deception. The criminal proceedings will be put on hold for now. "The completed assessment determined that at this time the Defendant is not competent to proceed, and recommends restorative treatment," Judge Steven Boyce wrote in Thursday's order, according to East Idaho News. Her husband, Chad Daybell, also appeared in court...

Police say a theft suspect in Idaho Falls fell through the ceiling tiles of a local restaurant Tuesday evening while running from officers. The Idaho Falls Police Department was looking for Jesse James Moore, 38, a suspect in two theft cases from earlier that day. The search was a rather unique one, allegedly involving children’s bicycles, stolen deli ham, and the suspect locking himself in a women’s bathroom in an attempt to escape into the ceiling of a Subway restaurant, according to an affidavit of probable cause. The search began earlier Tuesday when a woman called officers around 6 p.m....