Plot to Give 65% of Oregon to Idaho Advances

The movement by eastern Oregonians to secede from the state and join Idaho has taken a step further after a Republican state senator introduced a bill that would allow 11 counties to join their neighboring state.

State Senator Dennis Linthicum introduced Senate Joint Memorial 2 on January 10, also known as the ‘Greater Idaho’ bill.

“Eastern Oregon is culturally, politically and economically much more similar to Idaho than western Oregon,” said Matt McCaw, spokesman for the Greater Idaho Movement.

‘Our movement is about self-determination and uniting people with the government they want and that matches their values. In Oregon, we’ve had this urban-rural divide for a long time.’

Although the movement has been simmering for a while, the bill was introduced in the wake of the recent Oregon state election, in which a Republican came within four points of winning the governor’s mansion for the first time since 1987.

Republican candidate Christine Drazan, the Republican leader in the state House, came up short in her effort against Democrat Tina Kotek.

Kotek, the state’s first openly gay woman to serve as a speaker, will succeed outgoing Gov. Kate Brown, who has dismissed the Greater Idaho Movement and previous GOP attempts to remove her from office.

In addition to coming up short in the gubernatorial race, Democrats in the more progressive western part of the state, which includes Oregon and the two major college towns, led the left with a 10-seat majority in the state house and a majority of 5. majority of seats in the state senate.

Eleven eastern Oregon counties have voted in favor of this so far, and four other counties, including Wallowa, are included in the proposal to move state lines.

“Our proposal is to take that border between Oregon and Idaho, which was established almost 200 years ago at a very different time when there were only 50,000 people in the state of Oregon… It made sense then, it doesn’t make sense now to have that border there. because that’s not where the cultural divide is,’ McCaw said.

Idaho’s state government is even more dominated by Republicans than Oregon’s by Democrats.

Republicans hold a 28-7 majority in the Idaho state senate and a 58-12 majority in the state legislature.

Idaho has not elected a Democratic governor since 1995.

“The politics and government that works for Western Oregonians, that Western Oregonians want, doesn’t work in Eastern Oregonians, and it’s not what Eastern Oregonians want,” McCaw said.

Regardless of how residents vote, actually changing state borders would require approval by lawmakers in Oregon, Idaho, and the US Congress.

While Idaho Governor Brad Little said he was sympathetic to the Greater Idaho cause, he acknowledged that it was not likely to go anywhere.

“There are a lot of things that need to happen before moving the border is within the realm of possibility,” Little said.

Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner, a Democrat, doesn’t think the bill will move forward.

McCaw, however, sees no downside to his approval.

‘We’ve been in the Idaho legislature, we have a lot of support in the Idaho legislature for this idea. They see the benefit of bringing 400,000 like-minded people to their state. It makes Idaho stronger; it gives the people the government they want and it’s beneficial to everyone involved.’