Ore-Gone: Tired of Leftist Governance, Seven Oregon Counties Vote To Join Idaho
“This election proves that rural Oregon wants out of Oregon.”
After President Donald Trump was elected, there was a movement created among some unhappy Californians to #CalExit and secede from the union.
Now, in the wake of the Biden’s takeover, seven counties in Oregon voted to ‘secede’ from Oregon and become a part of neighboring Idaho.
In rural Oregon, voters in several counties want their state to go from Democratic blue to Republican red — and to do that, they hope to leave Oregon altogether and join neighboring Idaho. Five counties approved ballot measures this week, joining two others that had already voted in favor of the idea.
“This election proves that rural Oregon wants out of Oregon,” said Mike McCarter, president of the advocacy group Citizens for Greater Idaho.
He added, “If we’re allowed to vote for which government officials we want, we should be allowed to vote for which government we want as well.”
The Oregon counties who want to make the move all went for Trump in the 2020 election.
Voters in Malheur, Sherman, Grant, Baker and Lake counties passed a measure that would require county officials to promote and discuss moving the Idaho border west, and incorporate their populations. The counties would join Union and Jefferson counties in Idaho. The predominant industries in the counties that voted to join Idaho are timber, mining, trucking and farming.
…The efforts were led by the grassroots group Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho, which believes adding conservative counties to Idaho would benefit the state. The group cites Oregon’s lack of rural representation in the legislature, the state’s 2020 drug decriminalization law, and the state’s tax rate as reasons to move out of the state.
The organizers promoting “Greater Idaho” are also eyeing a few northern California counties and portions of Washington state.
On its website, the Greater Idaho movement had ideally proposed that Idaho “accept” dozens of Oregon counties along with a handful of counties in northern California and southeastern Washington, so that the Idaho border extends to the Pacific Ocean. This, as the group explained on its FAQ page, seemed more plausible than flipping Oregon red, or being granted its own state entirely.
As the group also acknowledges, the strategy is a “long shot,” as the Democratic-controlled Oregon legislature, the Idaho legislature and Congress would ultimately need to approve.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
I recall somebody on this blog advocating for “Succession.” Here it is – to some degree.
The disadvantage of this particular approach is that it makes 2 blue states more blue. Wouldn’t it be better to turn a blue red ? It could happen if the counties of Washington joined Oregon and turned it red.
That would be TheFineReport
Yes. The bastard.
You’ll all come to agree with me in the coming days. Hopefully, we’ll still have a chance to live our lives in freedom without a civil war.
Depends on what the CCP considers.
The transfer of voters could cost Oregon a congressman or two. Maybe more if neighboring counties decide to follow them later. If Portland becomes a city-state, I don’t see how that isn’t a major loss for the Marxists.
If Portland becomes a state, the dominos will fall, and the nation will fragment. It’d be a good idea to start preparing for it now – because it’s coming.
The US is just too far gone. Even if the GOP regained power, they’ll either lose it quickly, or not have the guts to do what’s needed to hold the nation together. Trump would, but as we’ve seen, we now have three political parties: the demorats, the GOP and the RINOS.
In terms of secession and the vote, is it better to join a neighboring reliably red state, or form a new state? The remaining smaller blue state of Portlantifa would still have 2 D senators, but fewer EC votes for president. They’d also be prevented from drawing house districts to tip the scales blue for otherwise red counties. The latter happens here in Clallam co WA since we’re lumped together with bluer Jefferson in house district 6 which runs south to Olympia and Tacoma who are rabidly liberal. Clallam for example voted for Culp (R) governor but we’re stuck with 2 D senators, and Kilmer D for a house rep.
This is an interesting discussion, and it’s about time we’re having it.
My opinion: the hell with forming new states – we just need to get the hell away from half the nation. We’ll be in paradise if we do.
The chance Oregon or Washington would agree to that is zero.
In this case however lets look at what this would do.
1. A Republican Congressman from Oregon now becomes a Republican Congressman from Idaho
2. Oregon is otherwise completely unchanged
3. No change to the balance in the United States senate
4. People who always vote to obstruct the state government are now no longer going to try to thwart Oregon’s state government
Because this would cost Oregon tax revenue chances of this succeeding are a longshot at best but the chance isn’t zero which a scheme to secede by portions of Washington in a way tailor made to turn Oregon red would be (the other side aren’t idiots both states would veto such a move so the issue of getting the secession votes then getting congress to approve wouldn’t come up).
The Constitution says:
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.
Note the language “nor any State formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States”. Here, formed means “created.” The adjustment of borders (by consent of the concerned States, or by settlement in court, if borders are disputed – and I’ll get back to that directly) does not “form” or “create” a “State.”
There is a considerable history of border disputes between States being settled by SCOTUS without any involvement of Congress. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internal_territorial_disputes_of_the_United_States)
Whether or not Congress would have a say in an agreement between two States that alter their borders is another matter. (Art. I, sec. 10 “No State shall…enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State…”) The fact that State borders have been changed without Congress’ involvement might argue that it does not apply, but I can also see arguments for its application.
In the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Island) about a dispute over Liberty Island, it says, “In 1998, the United States Supreme Court decided the state jurisdiction of the nearby Ellis Island in New Jersey v. New York. Being mostly constructed of artificial infill, New Jersey argued and the court agreed that the 1834 compact covered only the natural parts of the island, and not the portions added by infill. Thus it was agreed that the parts of the island made of filled land belonged to New Jersey while the original natural part belonged to New York. This proved impractical to administer and New Jersey and New York subsequently agreed to share jurisdiction of the entire island.”
However, I can’t find anything related to the agreement to indicate that it was ratified by Congress. (Although this agreement didn’t change any boundaries, it’s a related subject – jurisdiction – and an “agreement” between States that one might think should have required Congressional approval.)
What say the cognoscenti here?
Indeed this would not be the formation of a new state, so it would be a matter of the two states agreeing. Again, I don’t see why Oregon would ever agree to this.
As for Congress, the controlling case on the Compacts clause is Virginia v Tennessee, in which the Supreme Court held that the clause only applies to agreements that enhance one or more the contracting states’ power against that of Congress; agreements that don’t do that are none of Congress’s business.
Thus the NY-NJ agreement to share jurisdiction over Ellis Island, which is just an administrative arrangement, probably wouldn’t need Congress’s consent. Changing state boundaries does affect Congress, according to the linked case, so its consent is needed, but it needn’t be in the form of a formal act consenting to the compact; anything Congress does that shows its consent is sufficient.
And of course court cases over state boundaries don’t involve Congress at all, since they’re not agreements to move the boundary but decisions about where the legal boundary always was. Thus they’re a matter for the Supreme Court alone.
A state that combined eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon would be better, as it would add two Senators that would more reliably be conservative. And it would change the electoral college.
One problem might be that Spokane, the largest city in WA east of the Cascades and a potential capital, may not be reliably conservative. And the main problem with eastern Oregon is that it is so darn sparsely populated that it really doesn’t have all that much political heft. (E.g., Harney County is the size of Massachusetts and has a population of roughly 7,000 (density 0.7/sq. mi.)
The “Greater Idaho” map above does include western Oregon south of Lane County (Eugene and the University of Oregon). Josephine and Curry counties are pretty reliably conservative, and so is Jackson (with the exception of Ashland, which is CA chic brought north). Douglas County is pretty conservative, but it brought us corrupt governor John Kitzhaber, who practiced medicine there before going into politics (he actually was raised in Eugene). These southern Oregon counties have more population heft, which will help.
I agree with Alaska Bob below, who wants to sever CA and have a crescent to the Pacific Ocean. Southern Oregon doesn’t have a port like Portland’s or Seattle’s, but there is the Port of Coos Bay, which helps.
In all actuality, most of this “secession” stuff has very little chance of succeeding, but it at least is a “shot across the bow” and might encourage some western Oregonians to throw off the shackles of the Portland crowd. Rural western Oregon is pretty conservative, but it’s generally overwhelmed by its urban county seats and coastal enclaves inhabited by “elite” migrants from urban centers and other Blue states, such as CA.
I’d like to see the GOP push the new state of Jefferson as a focus of their perennial legislative theatrics. Just copy the talking points verbatim from the latest DC statehood bill and gush about how these “underserved communities” are having their civil rights trampled.
Now, that’s a great idea!!!!!!!!
As long as Oregon stays in the Union, it has a say in the matter. It loses that say if it successes.
They need more counties to vote
To make this work requires enough counties to extend, uninterrupted, to the sea. Once that happens all sorts of good things happen. It separates California from Blue Oregon and Washington. A Red Crescent could form from Texas to Idaho and even to Alberta and Yukon Territory. This isolates B.C. with most of eastern B.C. going with Alberta and also isolating “Hong-couver”. To succeed the Crescent must have Gulf of Mexico and Pacific access. This does it. Louisiana, Alabama and Florida added gives Atlantic Ocean access. Dominos anyone?
Why does reaching the Pacific matter? You don’t get extra electoral votes for geographically containing landmark or being having ideologically contiguous lands.
I am discussing creating a cohesive economic land mass with shipping access of the West Coast. Canada allows secession and Alberta would be like minded.. A large contiguous cohesive area would have more leverage in any circumstance.
Implied threat of secession wouldn’t give our side leverage it would make us more unpopular in suburbs and working class areas we need to win. What would is using political power where and when we have it and an actual honest assessment of what we are doing wrong (as opposed to a neocon claiming we need to become open borders).
That takes a lot of honest reassessment. For example is this overspending on military even as it politicizes to the left popular? How about the bizarre obsession with lowering Bill Gates tax rate?
Changing our tune on those issues would make us a little more popular with the working class giving us more leverage.
Thanks to the panama canal we have a geographically contiguous area now anyway and have no leverage besides using the filibuster.
Has anyone asked Idaho how they feel about all of this?
Yes they are for it, the government
As was West Virginia. Still, that secession proposal seems to have stalled out.
Sidenote: this is why the GOP can NEVER be trusted until we purge the rino scum from the ranks and force them into a third party with their base of no one:
GOP Congressman ‘Forgot’ To Cast Proxy Vote Which Would Have Tanked Democrats’ $1.9B Security Spending Bill:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/gop-congressman-forgot-cast-proxy-vote-which-would-have-tanked-democrats-19b-security
Come crunch time, no matter the GOP majority, they always deliver victory to the Dems by one vote. That’ s why I like to say: “Even if the Senate had 100 Republicans, they would find a way to lose by one vote.
This is all pointless. Why would the Oregon legislators ever allow these counties to leave? What’s in it for them?
The only thing I could see as in it for Oregon legislators is they would never ever have to campaign again to win re-election because even the craziest Republican optimist or the worst Democrat pessimist would realize that they are never losing in Oregon period.
But they would be losing lots of revenue and the chances of Oregon flipping in the near future aren’t exactly high so…
But the Oregon legislators don’t need people anymore. They have machines to vote for them now.
That is a lie and I really don’t see why you are propagandizing on behalf of Democrats with this “NEVER EVER VOTE AGAIN!” message. We lost the 2020 election get over it already.
If you are going to be telling a lie at least tell one that helps instead of hurts your own side.
Republicans tried running on Trump’s don’t vote it’s rigged message and on Jan 5th that cost us the senate.
The only lie is the one you tell, that “We lost the 2020 election…”
Who is “We”? You are not one of “us”. You lost the election and Trump won a landslide electoral victory. That is without any doubt.
I believe with every fiber of my being that Trump won the presidential election, but Danny is right, we lost anyway. How did that happen? How can we both win and lose? You saw it happen in real time.
We believe (know) that the election was a complete fraud, that Trump won, but we also know that Biden was installed in the White House (fun fact, I have never one called him “President Biden,” including in my LI posts, and I never will). Biden is president. It’s done, it’s over, he’s not going anywhere (unless he dies of natural causes, in which case Kamala would be president. I’d take that as a sign that God has no forsaken us after all. :P).
Bottom line, whichever way you slice it, we lost the 2020 election. Did we lose it fairly? Clearly not, but it’s still lost. We have to move forward, we have to keep gaining ground . . . do you not see how freaking scared the Chi-Com RINOs are? Liz and MItt are working overtime to get the GOP back on the commie track they love so much. If we keep focusing on 2020 and not on 2022 and 2014, we are the world’s dumbest people ever. Focus, Barry, retake the GOP, exile the RINO’s (hopefully, they’ll start their own warmongering commie-lite party), and Make America Great.
It’s like mice voting to ban cats. The cats don’t care.
Read recently that many Leftist areas would love getting rid of the great unwashed the befoul their precious lives.
While that is actually true (I have met some Portlanders they do hate that part of the state) the state legislators have a budget which needs revenue.
If Oregon was closer to being a swing state I could see them agreeing to lose some of their spending power in return for easier elections it is blue enough that I just don’t see it happening.
But the chances aren’t zero.
They would lose revenue, but they would also cut loose a huge amount of infrastructure that they would no longer have to support, but that they currently must maintain, largely for the benefit of the rubes who live outside of the PDX area.
Or the Three Little Pigs voting against the wolf.
The only chance I see of something like this passing the hurdles is if we create a new state, while granting DC statehood.
That might be enough to convince the congressional Dems, but what would be in it for the Oregon legislature?
Worst idea I have ever heard. So Democrats permanently have the senate in return for some red areas joining Idaho, an Oregon Republican congressman becomes an Idaho Republican Congressman…
Hard pass
It would put Idaho (and any other states joining Idaho) if threatening secession, in a much better position. It will be larger, more populous, controlling more natural resources, and it will sit across land access infrastructure (roads, rail lines, bridges) that control access to the Portland area and all of Washington State (with the exception of WA’s border with Canada, but that’s another can of worms because it’s an international border itself).
Think strategically, act tactically.
Read Bigskydoc’s comment again. He said the deal would be that we get a new state in return for them getting DC. So the balance in the senate would be preserved. They’d still get the better of the deal since they’d get a seat in the House out of it.
We spent several very pleasant days in central Pennsylvania during the week when this story became known. And we agreed the middle 2/3rds of Penn’s territory would fit very nicely if they might be interested in joining Greater Upstate New York.
Again, what they’re interested in is not relevant. The question is why the NY and PA legislatures would be interested. What would be in it for them?
This isn’t a parlor game of charting a sterile intellectual path through the laws to predict inevitable loss (again). Should enough of the majority of US counties that are red decide to make the effort, the journey itself will be worth it. Something would have to change and the tidal wave of voter outrage at being marginalized will wreak havoc on the corrupt system. The house of cards WILL come down.
The problem is that upstate NY is equally oppressed territory. What’s in that for anybody?
A lot of eastern and Southern Wa would like to go too.
Not going to happen. They’re stuck.
At least until there’s civil war. Given that armed militias are imposing their will on Portland’s neighborhoods right now and it’s all being sanctioned by their mayor and Governor, that may not be as far away as people might think.
I remain amazed at the number of people who still believe there is any way out of this morass short of hostilities… especially when they fail to comprehend that hostilities have already been initiated by the other side.
A good pal of mine is fond of pointing out that “In the entirety of human history, no group of people have ever voted themselves freer.” Yet in our efforts to be “nice guys” we deliberately refuse to learn this from history.
“The group cites Oregon’s lack of rural representation in the legislature, ….”
This is a direct result of the 1960s Democrat controlled US Supreme Court ruling in Reynolds v Sims which eliminated the historical check and balance in states between cities and rural areas by banning State senates based on geography. Under the rubric of “one man one vote” these Democrat partisans gave big urban areas more control thus today Portland controls Oregon; Seattle controls Washington, Chicago controls Illinois, California’s Democrat monopoly big cities control that state. The US Senate is based on geographic and that check and balance as well as the electoral college are future targets of the Democrat crime gang.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims
The entire point of having a senate and a bicameral legislative body is to balance representation by population in one chamber against the rights of nominally sovereign territorial entities in the other. Because “counties’ rights” was never an issue (as was “states’ rights” vis-à-vis the federal government), bicameral legislatures in most states serve no obvious purpose, except when chance has the two chambers controlled by different parties. Usually one just rubber-stamps the other. (We now have the same problem in Congress, which is why the 17th Amendment is an abomination that should be repealed. The ruination of the former “check and balance” provided by the Senate is already complete in that regard. Any agitation to change representation in the Senate of any number of the States will lead to calls for secession. It also would require a constitutional amendment. It’s a line the Dems would be stupid to cross, esp. since they don’t have to do so.)
Counties have no rights against their states, because they are creations of the states. It’s entirely up to a state what internal subunits it wishes to create, if any, how to draw them, and what powers to grant them. It can alter or abolish them completely at will.
Thus it’s absurd to compare them to the states’ position in the USA. The states are not the union’s creations but the exact opposite; the union is the states’ creation. The states are the ones with the power, and they have granted some of that power to the union.
Therefore the US senate, with equal representation of all states, is just. That was the deal the states made, and without it they would never have agreed to create the union in the first place. But if a state chooses to create subdivisions of unequal size and give them equal representation in one chamber of its legislature, that violates the 14th amendment because it gives some people’s votes more weight than others. If a state wants to have such a chamber it must make all the subunits of equal size, and redistrict them every ten years to maintain that parity. Which it can do, of course, unlike Congress which can’t redraw the states.
In the age of declared “sanctuary counties” in favor of groups from illegal aliens to pot smokers to gun owners, this de jure analysis is de facto collapsing.