Few states, if any, are as relentlessly and drearily woke as Oregon. Leftists can point proudly to Portland, with its ubiquitous crime, homelessness, broken windows, graffiti, and debris, as the model for what they want to do to the entire nation. But at least some Oregonians have decided that they don’t actually want to live in the Left’s paradise, and are tired of being tyrannized by the Leftists who run the state. Nine Oregon counties have already voted to secede from the state and join Idaho, and two more are set to vote in November about whether or not they want to do so as well. It’s an eloquent indication of which policies actually work for the American people: while Americans from all over the country flock to deep red Florida, in deep blue Oregon, people are actually trying to redraw the state boundaries so that they’re no longer in the blue state at all.
The Greater Idaho movement explains: “We promote the idea of creating a greater (bigger & stronger) Idaho so that conservative counties can become a part of a red state. We started from rural Oregon, but our movement now includes people of northwestern Oregon who welcome a new, smaller Oregon, as well as Idahoans, Californians, and Washingtonians.” The movement maintains that “moving the Idaho border is a win-win for each decision-making body.”
The Greater Idaho movement also suggests that those who think that the very idea is impossible are simply unaware of history: “Counties can become a part of Idaho. State lines have been relocated many times in American history because it just takes an interstate compact between two state legislatures and approval of Congress.” The idea that state boundaries can be changed is based on the idea of state governance in itself: “If the United States were governed as a single state, we wouldn’t have the opportunity for state governance to vary according to the culture of a local area. The purpose of having state lines is to allow this variance.” An important and often overlooked point.
An adjustment in the boundaries would simply make them conform to present-day realities: “The Oregon/Idaho border was established 163 years ago and is now outdated. It makes no sense in its current location because it doesn’t match the location of the cultural divide in Oregon. The Oregon/Washington border was updated in 1958. It’s time to move other borders.”
The move would even benefit the hyper-woke inmates of Western Oregon. The Greater Idaho movement argues: “In 2019, the average northwestern Oregonian wage earner subsidized eastern & southern Oregon counties by $382 per year, judging from income tax rates, plus $187 per year for state highways. Are you willing to keep paying that, just so that Oregon looks big on a map?”
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Also, once the conservative counties leave the state, “Republicans in the Oregon Legislature would no longer have the numbers to deny quorum by walking out or slow the legislature by forcing bills to be read in full. Democrats would keep the supermajority needed to pass financial laws. Oregon would make progress, becoming more liberal than Washington state.” It’s all about self-determination: “Moving the border allows each side of the state to get the kind of governance that is desired by the majority of its own residents. Oregon would no longer hold eastern Oregon captive against its will, and eastern Oregon votes would no longer affect Oregon elections.”
Matt McCaw, spokesman for the Greater Idaho movement, explained Thursday: “It makes more sense for Eastern Oregonians to get state-level governance coming from Idaho, where they share their values, share their culture, share their politics, than it does to be governed by Western Oregon.” He noted that the Eastern part of the state voted decisively for Trump, while the Western part voted overwhelmingly for Old Joe Biden, and put the state into his column. “It’s always been a problem,” said McCaw, “because the west side has many more voters. They have the numbers to dictate what happens statewide.”
In 2020, Idaho’s Governor Brad Little, a Republican, said that he understood why Oregonians would “like to have a little more autonomy, a little more control, a little more freedom.” That is certainly true. Autonomy and freedom, however, are not what the far-Left is about. The far-Left government of East Berlin, which Portland aspires to emulate, had to build a wall to keep its people in, and other Leftist governments have likewise resorted to various measures to prevent people from leaving. Since the governing authorities in woke Oregon are just as Leftist as East German Communist rulers Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker ever were, if not more so, it is extremely unlikely that they will allow the eastern Oregonians leave for Idaho. Still, the fact that the Greater Idaho movement exists at all is a testimony to the abject failure and destructiveness of the Left’s pet policies.
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