Another county in Oregon will now get to decide whether it supports a plan to secede from the state and join Idaho. This from westernjournal.com.
This coming November, Harney County residents will get to vote on the “Greater Idaho” proposal, which seeks to change the Oregon-Idaho border, according to KTVZ-TV.
One of the two main groups behind the initiative, “Move Oregon’s Border,” told the outlet that it had collected the necessary signatures for the proposal to be on the ballot.
According to the Greater Idaho website, Harney County Clerk Derrin Robinson said in a news release, “The Question to be voted on by the people of Harney County is: Shall the County Court meet three times annually to discuss promoting Harney County’s interests regarding relocation of the state border?”
The reasoning behind the Greater Idaho plan is to create a better Idaho so that counties with more conservative populations can join a red state, according to the Greater Idaho website. The website also says that through the approvals of the plan at the county level, it seeks to “convince state legislators to stop holding rural Oregon counties captive in a blue state.”
Seven counties in Oregon have already voted in favor of the Greater Idaho plan, according to the movement’s website.
Harney County will be the next in line to vote on this initiative, while Move Oregon’s Border is still working toward obtaining the necessary signatures in six more counties, the site says.
Additionally, the website says that county commissioners have been asked — in five counties that Move Oregon’s Border was not allowed to distribute petitions in — to place a question regarding Greater Idaho on their ballots.
Mike McCarter, the president of Citizens for Greater Idaho and Move Oregon’s Border, told KTVZ that many people in rural Oregon feel they are ignored. While he thinks it is possible to rectify the divide between rural and urban areas, he said it seems that policies in Oregon have continued to go in only one direction.
“And that’s because 78 percent of the vote is in northwest Oregon, and that controls the whole state,” McCarter told KTVZ.
This movement is intriguing, and people are eager to see where it goes and how it all works out. While there is some hope this will come to fruition, it should be noted that there are many obstacles still to overcome before the Greater Idaho proposal to come to fruition.
In order for the plan to move forward, the state legislatures of at least Oregon and Idaho — plus California, if an optional phase two of the proposal is pursued — would need to decide to support the change.
Then, if the state legislatures agree to the new alignment, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate would need to approve it in order for it to become reality. Effectively, it’s the legislative bodies that have the true power to change the borders, not the counties themselves.
It doesn’t seem logical to think that the stars will align for all these events to happen, but the plan’s proponents remain optimistic.
@AlecKTVZ Journalists have been saying that Greater Idaho doesn't have much chance. We are confident that we will convince Idaho to accept our counties. Congress usually approves interstate compacts approved by both a blue state and a red state. It approves several each year.
— Citizens for Greater Idaho (@GreaterIdaho) July 20, 2021
Regardless of whether or not this will actually all work out, it is still great news for conservatives living in Oregon.
Rural citizens are fed up with the one-party rule in their state, and it makes sense why they would try to join a conservative state that more closely aligns with their beliefs.
Now, some might ask why these disgruntled citizens don’t just get up and move to Idaho.
In response to that notion, McCarter said that people in central, eastern and southern Oregon have connections to their land and communities.
“We can pick up and move to Idaho, that’s fine. But wouldn’t it be easier as a whole, the way people are voting, just to say okay, we want to become Idahoans, so let’s move the border, so we’re there without even having to pick up and go?” he said.
Even though the mountain before them is an impossibly high one to climb, they just keep on climbing, putting in the work, garnering signatures and getting more counties to include it on their ballots, in hopes of pressuring the state legislatures to start discussing this more seriously.
The bottom line is, they are doing what needs to be done to get one step closer to achieving their goal.
That is what America is all about.
