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.
These people want to abandon everything that makes their lives great for… (checks notes) The rights to control women, marry children, and to burn crosses on their ethnic neighbors lawn.
Mostly (and this is probably true for over 60% of Republicans), it’s about defunding half of the government programs they rely on but don’t realize it, sold to them through the euphemism of “tax cuts”.
I think the right to control women is next on the list, but even then we see that even republican public opinion on abortions is stricter than the left’s, but would actually prefer less extreme laws than what has been passed.
As much of a meme as it is, most rural religious folk aren’t militant about marrying children and burning crosses. We hear about every instance of child marriage cause it sucks so much, and people have been openly, violently racist despite the law for centuries, all it takes is a town full of like-minded people.
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?
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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.
Just make all the racists move to Idaho proper. No need to change state lines.
Yeah, you Republicans are fucking dumb.
So I am from WA and have been aware of this plan for a while.
This is one phase, and the next phase is to try to do this with as many Eastern WA counties as possible.
And to anyone wondering why this is happening, ya’ll obviously are not from around the PNW.
Basically, Seattle, Tacoma and Portland are bastion of liberals and actual leftists. Bellevue is as well, but its only for corpos these days.
Nearly everywhere else west of the cascades is just barely more blue than red, and there are tons of smaller towns with Republican controlled county legislatures and town/city governments.
On the East of the Cascades, in the desert, basically, Republicans are generally in charge of everything that isn’t a Reservation.
Its a bit more complex than this, but it is pretty much ‘big cities’ are blue, mid and small cities and everything else is red.
While I am against this succeeding, I do not think this is as cut and dry, obviously unconstitutional as some other posters here are making it seem.
It is not creating a new state. It is counties voting to leave one state and join another. To the best of my knowledge, this is completely unprecedented in the history of the US.
They’ve got a whole detailed plan for how to attempt to get this actually done. And they have a lot of judges, and now a popular mandate.
I honestly do not know how this will play out as it will likely hinge on various judiciaries and possibly executive (Governor) moves.
Yes, the state legislatures have to sign off on it and thats a big hurdle to jump, but it may actually be doable if enough political pressure is applied… especially if Trump wins.
It could possibly make it to the Circuit Courts and then the Supreme Court.
I describe it like this… the places where people actually live are blue.
The places where there are more square miles than people are red.
Places where people are poorly educated seem to be mostly red too.
Happen to be more easily persuaded to vote against their own interests, too
It should be noted this is true for almost the entirety of the United States.
Can we merge Idaho with the rest of the Midwest? It’d be pretty fucking sweet to have less GOP senators.
There is a legal way to do this:
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
— Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1
Nebraska and South Dakota have a compact that’s been approved by Congress that has land swap between the states based on where the river is when particular assessments happen. So land leaving one state and going to another state isn’t unheard of. If you go look at NE and SD’s border in the southeast corner of SD, you’ll see the river and the border is pretty tight. Now compare that to states that have no such compact like Arkansas and Tennessee. River and the border are all kinds of messed up.
The thing is, both Idaho’s and Oregon’s State assembly will have to vote on it as you indicated. It’s not up to the citizens to dictate when a state’s border can be redrawn. Once Idaho and Oregon have a compact, they will need to send it to DC for Congress to vote on it. If it passes both the House and the Senate, the new compact can be enforced and the new borders drawn.
From what I’ve heard Oregon will not even begin to entertain this notion.
But yes, this is completely legal in the Constitution and we’ve done it before too. And we even have had the case where we took one state and split it into two happen before as well. Virginia and West Virginia. So we’ve used this part of the Constitution enough to know exactly how it needs to go down.
Is it going to go down? IDK. California said they were going to split up into 3, 4, 5 different States, not holding my breath on that one either. Would be pretty neat to redraw Idaho though. Never liked it’s weird long edge on the west side. Now it’ll look like someone giving the middle finger or something.
This is so damn odd, it’s a state. Just move. It’s not another country. Shit like this is what makes me think we should just abolish the states honestly. This mindset is weird
Some people are too poor to move. Just move is an insane idea and we need to eradicate it.
So moving is an insane idea, but transferring huge portions of land between states is totally rational and reasonable?
Just move is a perfectly legitimate idea when the only reason you want to move is because a political ideology. Not even political ideology wanting to impose your political ideology. If this was an economic issue I would never say just move. If this was a persecution issue I would never say just move. If this was any legitimate issue I would never say just move. However this is obviously, pathetically obviously, none of those things. They don’t like the people around them. They’re bigots. Bigots should move.
Frankly I think it’s absurd that you’re even suggesting that they have some kind of legitimate gripe. Equating their issue to anything legitimate is beyond ignorant.
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The idea of States and federal governments make no sense to me. Same country but different set of laws? Why even form a country?
States are the test tubes of government ideas.
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Yea this might have something to do with it
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/24/people-rights-network-oregon-elections
At least 66 members of far-right group in rural Oregon standing for office
Revealed: anti-government People’s Rights Network, founded by Ammon Bundy, appearing to follow ‘entryism’ strategy
At least 66 members of an anti-government group founded by far-right militia figure Ammon Bundy have attempted to win local positions of influence in the Republican party in Oregon, the Guardian can reveal.
The candidates stood for Republican precinct committee person (PCP) slots in three central Oregon counties in this week’s elections, with some facing no opponent and thus winning their positions by default. The role of PCPs includes electing the executive of the county-level GOP apparatus.
The move is part of what appears to be a coordinated attempt to capture the local Republican party infrastructure, following a far-right strategy of “entryism” into more mainstream political bodies.
That will make Idaho look even stupider.
And it’s already our stupidest-looking state.
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.
Just get rid of the electoral college already and stop giving these dipshit minorities a chance in hell of moving this country backwards.
The more crazed element of the Oregon left are so damn detacted from reality that this won’t even ring alarm bells. Every left swing has a counter swing. Time to stop being divisive and look for common ground.
And Trump is your common ground, I suppose?
He’s the one to avoid. You seem to have missed the point.
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I don’t blame’em.
