Twelfth Oregon County Votes to Join the “Greater Idaho” Movement
These counties do not want to be part of the “Greater Utopia” that includes Portland.
This January, I wrote that one Oregon county submitted a petition that added a ballot initiative for joining 11 other of the state’s counties in the “Greater Idaho” movement.
The votes have been counted and its official: Wallowa County is now part of the “Greater Idaho” movement.
The vote originally took place in May, with preliminary results showing support for the effort leading by only 21 votes. After all votes were finalized in June, the lead shrunk to only seven votes, narrowly avoiding the state requirement for a recount.
The “Greater Idaho” effort originally began in 2020 as an idea for large swaths of rural eastern Oregon to secede and join the more conservative Idaho to get away from the western, progressive part of the state.
With Wallowa County’s vote, 12 out of 12 counties that have held an election on a “Greater Idaho” measure of any kind have voted in favor of exploring the move.
The adage “every vote counts” was certainly true in this case.
The 50.1% to 49.9% split in Wallowa County will require its commissioners to discuss merging with Idaho and won’t trigger a recount, an elections official in Wallowa County confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive.
The final vote count stood at 1,752 people for Measure 32-007, which will require that commissioners “meet twice annually to discuss promoting Wallowa County interest in relocating Idaho borders to include Wallowa County,” versus 1,745 people against it.
Wallowa County Clerk Sandy Lathrop said the measure missed the requirement for a mandatory recount by just one vote. A recount is required by Oregon law when the winning margin is less than or equal to .2%, which is 6.994 votes in this instance. The state does not round up, she said, so seven votes wasn’t small enough to force a recount.
Lathrop also said six contested ballots were not cured before Tuesday’s 5 p.m. deadline.
The leftists are complaining about the results.
Stephen Piggott with the Western States Center, which tracks far-right extremism in the Northwest and Mountain West and promotes marginalized communities, said the Greater Idaho movement and the questions that have shown up on local ballots in most recent election cycles contribute to the divide.
“There’s a lot of division within the country, in general, and Greater Idaho is fanning the flames of that and then adding fuel to the fire,” Piggott said.
He added that proponents of changing the state boundary focused on inflammatory issues including anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and COVID-19 denial. Piggott shared screenshots of ads and online memes posted by supporters, including one comparison of the two states that credited Idaho for “trustworthy elections” and derided Oregon for providing driver’s licenses and health coverage to people living in the country illegally, allowing transgender girls to play in girls’ sports leagues and paying for Medicaid recipients and others who receive health coverage through the state to receive abortions.
Meanwhile, Portland officials have just passed a daytime camping ban to try and gain some control over the lawless city.
Business owners are not impressed with the new rules.
Commissioner Rene Gonzalez said Wednesday that almost no one will go to jail due to the ordinance.
That’s led downtown business owners to question if there are “teeth” to the punishment for those who violate the ordinance.
“That just means there’s no teeth,” Bob, a downtown business owner said. “I mean they don’t have $100 to pay so they just won’t pay it. So, what’s there going to be, a bench warrant? It doesn’t make any sense, it’ll be ineffective, completely ineffective.”
He said sales from his store have dropped 20% in the past year. Bob said that’s due to people being afraid to visit his downtown location.
“I don’t know why it’s taken so long for the city to start addressing this problem. It’s just been getting worse and worse. We actually have a maintenance person that hangs around here, and he’s got two five-gallon buckets full of used needs that he’s picked up in the last two years.”
He said the ordinance should be for 24 hours a day instead of 12 hours, which was approved.
Bob believes there is too much government funding being allocated to resources to help those experiencing homelessness.
Clearly, 12 Oregon counties do not want to be part of the “Greater Utopia” that includes Portland. It will be interesting to see how much more of Oregon want to secede to join Idaho.
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Comments
Someone made a good point about these rural-urban states. to get representation for all they need to come up with a system, the urban liberal don’t get all the offices. Much like an Electoral College for states.
Unfortunately the SCOTUS struck down systems of representation which had the State Senate elected by each County long ago. It was flawed b/c it provided in the view of SCOTUS an unequal representation between more populated urban Counties and less populated rural Counties.
So effectively, they declared the Constitution unconstitutional.
Warren Court would have loved to do that but ran out of time. So they simply declared that 150 years of Congressional approval of state constitutions were in violation of the 14th amendment (afaik). The Senate and Presidency were next
Wasn’t that the entire point of a Senate?
Mostly yes, it was as they say a feature not a bug. Specifically designed to mitigate densely populated areas from enacting a ‘tyranny of the majority’. This is the same reason that a long term lefty goal has been elimination of the US Senate or altering it to take State population into account like the HoR.
Bunk. For ~170 years, until SCOTUS started down the ‘one citizen one vote’ road, any state could have used an Electoral College style voting system for its statewide races, e.g. governor. None did.
Not one of the 13 original states.
Not one of the 37 states since admitted
Not one of the states of the Confederacy that had to rewrite their state constitutions to rejoin the United States.
Not one of the 13+ states e.g. Michigan that periodically hold state constitutional conventions ever adopted an EC style voting system.
If the writers of the Constitution adopted the EC because they thought it wise, why has no state ever adopted it before SCOTUS slammed the door?
Well yeah, when SCOTUS made their ruling one man one vote was part of the reasoning in the decision to prohibit State level Senate representation which didn’t have nearly equal size population.
Not ‘bunk’ that’s how it happened. I don’t happen to agree with the decision but SCOTUS did change the way States had been selecting Senators. Obviously this gave more power to densely populated urban areas and decreased the power of rural areas. IMO, this has led to rural areas being neglected in large part in many States.
“If the writers of the Constitution adopted the EC because they thought it wise, why has no state ever adopted it before SCOTUS slammed the door?”
My guess: the founders wrote this in because they already had direct experience with hundred-ton states overpowering small, rural states. A lot of newly-formed states were made out of territories that were barely populated. It’s possible their founders never considered the existence of hundred-ton welfare-enclave cities.
Also, congress didn’t exactly give new states free rein in writing their own constitutions. They held Arizona up until we got rid of “direct recall of judges” because they didn’t like it. (So Arizona took it out, got statehood, then put it back.) I’m wondering if some state ever in fact proposed an electoral college and got told no.
Unfortunately, the comparison of one senator per county with the US senate fails. The members of the US Senate represent sovereign states. Counties, and all other local governments or subdivisions, however, are creatures of the state and can be created or abolished by the state legislature at will.
Would that be the legislature of the same Sovereign State which could alter their political subdivisions? Either the States are sovereign in their sphere or they aren’t.
Yes, the legislature of each state is sovereign (subject to checks and balances in its own constitution), so they make the decisions about local governments, I thought that was obvious.
“Either the States are sovereign in their sphere or they aren’t.”
The States are always subject to the Federal Constitution. Or do you agree that the ‘sovereign’ states should have the right to regulate firearms, as Oregon is trying to do?
IMO, the the powers of the Federal govt as enemy in Art 1, Sec 8 are the sole preserve of the Federal govt. The States and the people retain all other powers as stated in the the 9th and 10th amendments.
Within their own sphere, that is to say when not intruding into solely Federal govt sphere, the States are IMO sovereign. Subject of course to the limits on govt power laid out in the US Constitution and in particular the bill of rights.
Ha. Enumerated came out as ‘enemy’ by spell check, not a Freudian slip I pinky swear!
“The States are always subject to the Federal Constitution. Or do you agree that the ‘sovereign’ states should have the right to regulate firearms, as Oregon is trying to do?”
Until 15 years ago, they had precisely that right, and many of them exercised it.
Oddly, nothing “in the constitution” changed, only the opinion of some blackrobes of a different set than the ones who earlier blessed those arrangements.
I agree with you that there seems to be a need for some way to make rural areas have more power than just their votes. We are a Republic in our government but a democracy in our voting. The majority wins in voting but the winners go to a Republic representational system for control. Other than what the people in Idaho and Oregon are trying to do there doesn’t seem to be any other way to solve this issue. Here in GA, we have about four large cities and they are always Democrat. They make up more than half of the total votes here so if there is going to be any cheating it is always in these four cities. Our lousy Governor Kemp, (R) would have never gotten elected had it not been that his opponent, Stacey Abrams, (D) was even worse.
This is effectively cats voting that they maintain a no dog area, or mice voting they are in a no cat area the dogs/cats depending on comparison won’t care and the cats/mice depending on comparison will still have to operate normally.
A state government that would allow these counties to secede and join Idaho is also a circumstance where they wouldn’t feel any need to secede and join Idaho.
Not entirely. Mostly yes it is for show. On the other hand the fact that 50%+1 of the Citizens who bothered to vote seem to want to change horses should at least be a somber moment for the State leaders. Will those leaders pay attention? Probably not, at least not until a more vigorous demonstration of Citizen dissatisfaction comes into being.
If I were Idaho I’d be hesitant to take in a county with 49% Marxist idiots
They’re getting them anyway. Idaho suffers from the same problem as Texas – an influx of Californians.
I often compare leftists to locusts. But this map shows it’s also appropriate to compare them to seagulls: they invade a state’s waterfront areas, and then poop all over them.
Yeah, tell me about it. We’re fleeing deeper into the Hill Country as a result of the infestation.
I wish I could be optimistic that it would make the state Democrat party start playing fairer with those counties/Rs but I sincerely doubt they will (although they should).
Agreed. Perhaps withholding property tax, placing it into escrow instead of forwarding it to the Staten capital, would be sufficient to get State leaders to pay more attention?
I was shocked by the number of no votes. It is like the polls that show some number like 40% who support Biden’s re-election! Who are these people? Are they all on Burisma’s payroll? Who in eastern Oregon would want to be controlled by the perverts in the west?
Some people don’t like change even if it’s a change for the better. This is one reason I don’t label myself a conservative. There’s a whole lot of things going on that I don’t want to conserve, instead I want to replace them.
Western Oregon Democrats complain about all the division and cite examples. Well, yes, those are some of the reason and good ones too. These Democrats are utterly perplexed as to how anyone in the Eastern counties could be in possession of such inferior intellects that make them want to leave.
I mean who do they think they are? Only we marxists with our socialist, culture destroying agendas are allowed to promote division!
One party views their political system is an earthly paradise (can that word be used for atheistic system?) and the other… not so much. The Left..perfecting “man” in their own image. (I can give you the 10 “Reasons” that they are missing).
Fuzz…. I too miss Milhouse dumping objective cold water on discussions.
What happened to that guy?
Yea what happened to Milly?
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1 of the US Constitution states: 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.
Given that leftists use the constitution as toilet paper unless they’re using it to punish enemies, advance agendas, or consolidate power, my guess is neither congress, and certainly not the Oregon legislature, give a rats behind about what serfs in the hinterland desire for ‘greater Idaho.’
VoTe HaRdEr.
Maybe Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon should form a state, West Virginia-style. Just do it.
This new state would be a good idea, especially if the Ds get their additional state of Puerto Rico. So, each side would get two additional senators and the Reps for Washington, Oregon would be adjusted based on the new population.
If the two areas combine, they would be somewhat of a mirror image of Idaho. Instead of a Greater Idaho, the goal should be Western Idaho or a new name for the state.
No, no, no for Puerto Rico statehood. Had the country had forward-thinking leaders in the late-19th century Cuba would have been admitted as a state. Hawaii should never have been given statehood.
Now we have to always worry about the clot shot.
As for the Blue western side of Washington and Oregon…. there is always hope in the great cascade subduction zone. Presently writing this 20 miles from the San Andreas.. at least don’t have to worry about treading water….surf may be up but not that much if the more westward faults do.
pfg…. comment was for above about Milhouse
I agree on the NO for the PR statehood, I just mentioned it as a way to get people behind a new conservative state in the US west…
Well hell, if they want to make Puerto Rico or DC a state, why not greater Idaho?
In the old days, there was a gentlemen’s agreement that states would be admitted to the Union in pairs — a red one and a blue one — so as not to unfairly unbalance the senate.
These days, fairness and gentlemanliness are no longer on the table. The object is to admit as many consecutive new blue states as it takes to capsize the US.
Puerto Rico is a failed attempt at self-governance. They combine the worst of a South American country’s corruption and the immaturity of a handout ward of the US. They would be in bankruptcy within a year as a stand-alone state. If we let them vote for independence, they would be a ward of the Chinese within two years with a huge military base there. They are very similar to welfare queens in that they only thrive as long as the free money flows.
If we let them vote for independence, they’d vote it down. We’ve let them vote for statehood in the past, and they voted THAT down, because the welfare was better as a possession; they surely wouldn’t vote to cut ties entirely.
And although today’s Democrats would surely bribe them to approve statehood, there’s nothing in independence for Democrats, either.
Didn’t the Civil War give Congress cover to recognize West Virginia? It had been part of Virginia.
Reality time. Given the structure and who controls government in this country at all levels, does anyone really expect an electorally [so far] based movement to allow people to be governed with their own consent to be allowed to succeed?
Subotai Bahadur
Just waiting for some judge to rule that non-Leftists are counted as 3/5ths for representation.
It’s astounding to me that the measure’s final vote tally was as close as it was. How can any rational person countenance living under the vile Dumb-o-crats’ perennially and predictably corrupt, incompetent, callous and destructive governance? I assume that all of the “no” votes were cast by card-carrying, reflexively loyal Dumb-o-crats.
“Piggott shared screenshots of ads and online memes posted by supporters, including one comparison of the two states that credited Idaho for “trustworthy elections” and derided Oregon for providing driver’s licenses and health coverage to people living in the country illegally, allowing transgender girls to play in girls’ sports leagues and paying for Medicaid recipients and others who receive health coverage through the state to receive abortions.”
—————–
The vile Dumb-o-crats are insane. These aren’t allegedly “inflammatory” issues; they’re destructive and obnoxious Dumb-o-crat policies that are fairly and legitimately topics of voter concern and debate.
Does history record any instance of a Democrat/liberal/leftist policy that actually worked?
Well, if I can answer your rhetorical question in a cynical way, I’d submit that many of the Dumb-o-crats’ policies have “worked” from a tactical standpoint in their favor — creating more poverty, more urban blight, more dependency on government supports, more crime, more ginned-up and resentful masses, thus allowing the Dumbs to strut along and present themselves as the allegedly sagacious “experts” who will solve the very problems that they created and/or exacerbated, in the first place.
That’s the insidious brilliance of Dumb-o-crat policies — their predictably destructive and deleterious effects create the justification for additional, future Dumb-o-crat interventions, in perpetuity.
Rusty Bill, man this is like shooting fish in a barrel. I won’t stay long. But when you want to deny ALL liberal policies…I assume you will be returning your SS check when you retire? Now whether you like how SS is run is another question. I will agree there are huge issues; we will just see the issues totally differently. Nevertheless, for now, SS exists, as does Medicare. I assume you will be turning that down as well? Roosevelt may be a conservative’s nightmare BUT he also developed a bunch of things that, like them or not, people depend on. Try telling AARP that you are going to take away their SS/Medicare. Roosevelt also brought in other programs that we depend on, other than those things that you might find repugnant but also will not refuse. Did you turn down the COVID checks that the “bloated” federal govt sent you? I did not see a single conservative turn theirs down nor did I see a single corporation, supposedly free of govt “interference” turn down their money. If you want to ask me the same question, I was not eligible for any COVID checks. I did not recieve any additional money from the govt to get through the pandemic but I had the same increased costs that everyone else did of masks and everything else. I do not think everything the Dems do is great but neither do I think that crawling all over the Capitol like a bunch of cockroaches and leaving feces in the plants is the way to go.
The fact that the vote in Wallowa County was so close suggests that the leftist disease is spreading rapidly.
Wallowa County has only 7,300 people, and a fair number of them are employed by the state. If Idaho took over (fat chance) those people would stand a significant chance of being left high and dry in a place where very people people are getting rich.
How would schools and hospitals be funded? Who’d take care of the roads? It’s a long list.The proponents are just yammering without even bothering to discuss the practicalities. Look, if this was serious, they’d have thought it through. The Republicans in the Pacific NW are a joke. It’s not a matter of outlook, but a matter of organization — and they don’t have much of any.
Don’t forget the 36 interstate compacts Oregon has joined. They’d all have to be renegotiated if Greater Idaho came into being.
Source: https://ballotpedia.Org/Interstate_compacts_by_state#Oregon
This won’t happen for a couple of reasons.
First, Oregon won’t approve it because of how bad it would look. Idaho won’t approve it because the territory they’d acquire would be a fiscal drag. The people from afar who comment about it don’t realize just how vast eastern Oregon is, and how small its tax base is.
Second, if I’m wrong about point #1, the minute that residents of those counties look at Idaho and learn that the state sales tax is 6% + county options vs. nothing in Oregon, they’ll get serious and back off. Yes, Oregon income tax is high, but most people in Eastern Oregon don’t pay the top rate, but would be screwed by the sales tax.
Third, rule by Salem sucks, on that I whole-heartedly agree, but rule by Boise ain’t gonna be any better.
The answer is for Oregon’s Republican Party to shape up. The Democrats are terrible, but the Republicans are disorganized fools. Moving the state border is a non-solution and the produce of laziness and pointless bile. I hate to say that, because I sympathize greatly with the grievances. But becoming part of Idaho is nothing but an empty gesture, totally symbolic. Sound and fury signifying nothing. It won’t happen.
The Oregon GOP shaping up? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve lost ten straight gubernatorial elections, and what with any conservatives remaining now fleeing the state, you can expect them to lose at least ten more.
Same problem in WA State. They should declare neutrality on abortion, and they shouldn’t switch out qualified major candidates after every loss. In WA State, Rob McKenna bailed after one try. In Oregon, it looks like a damn roulette wheel. If the Dems weren’t so terrible, I would laugh at the Republicans. If these people have any sort of longer-term strategy, I have yet to discern it in almost 30 years living here.
It will be interesting to follow the money. The rump state will still have a fat budget but will be limited in power. The tent people will be very demanding but contributing less than nothing and their numbers will grow.