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Greater Idaho movement: 13 counties in eastern Oregon have voted to secede and join Idaho (ktvz.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/news

158 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] orclev 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I'm trying to decide if this would be a net positive or negative.

Looking at the congressional districts for Oregon and Idaho it looks like about 5 or 6 districts that are all Republican controlled. Currently Idaho has two congressional districts that both lean heavily Republican. Shifting 5 or 6 Republican congressional seats from Oregon to Idaho I don't see making a significant difference to Congress.

Looking at things in the Senate both Idaho senators are Republican and adding more Republican districts won't really change that in any meaningful way. On the flip side both of Oregon's Senators are currently Democrats and I can't imagine removing a bunch of Republican voters from the state would do anything but reduce the chances of one of those Senate seats getting flipped.

I'm not really seeing any way in which this would help Republicans or hurt Democrats other than just by generally strengthening each party's hold on its respective state.

[–] jj4211 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Easy. If Oregon loses a bunch of population and land area to Idaho, then they will probably then make an argument for taking away electors from Oregon and give them to Idaho.

Republicans struggle to get popular vote but can get electoral college, slim margins. This would potentially increase their electoral college advantage.

Edit: it has been pointed out that that wouldn't even need to argue for it, the elector transfer would be automatic at 10 year interval.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That assumes that the population of these counties is significant compared to the cities though, right? These seem to be the lowest population-density counties in the state.

[–] jj4211 5 points 1 month ago

To the extent they contribute to Oregon's electoral votes, they would then contribute to Idaho. The fact they are relatively lower population can still move the votes. Have a hard time digging up nice easy data, but they have 8 votes today and even a relative minority of voters going could change that from 8 votes all for democrats to 2 or 3 votes for republican. As someone else said, rinse and repeat for Washington state. Then, off to take part of california to make Nevada a sure thing for republicans and give nevada more votes. Also probably poking all over to erode blue states, carving out some of viginia between kentucky and west viginia, and illinois, colorado, and minnesota are also ripe targets. So Republicans can free up some of those electoral votes that are buried under blue, and press an advantage where they already overcome the popular vote with electoral votes a lot of time.

This is a strategy that won't work for democrats, as the democratic regions in red states tend to be surrounded by a sea of red, with no logical way to 'free' those votes for the benefit of the democrats. They would instead have to push for proportional electoral college votes within their states or to go popular vote nationwide.

So on the one hand, the secession strategy shouldn't work, as it is explicitly unconstitutional, but the GOP would really want it to happen, and they might be able to make it so. The converse strategies may be constitutional, but would require people to approve of it that would be explicitly undermined by it.

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[–] Invertedouroboros 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's been a while since I've looked at this but not only is such an arrangement impossible without federal input (as the comment from tal states) but I seem to recall seeing that a lot of the counties looking to join the greater Idaho thing are some of the ones most dependent on the Oregon state government for funding. If they did manage to leave then it'd actually probably be a net boon for Oregon in terms of state resources going to places where people actually live.

The resultant Greater Idaho though? Suddenly saddled with a bunch of counties that need a lot of help to maintain services and seemingly a general political attitude of the government shouldn't help people. In my personal opinion it'd turn pretty fucking distopian pretty quick, that is of course assuming that they could somehow get Oregon, Idaho and the federal government to agree to their scheme. I don't think it's going to happen, even if they can get some counties to sign off on it. But if they did the people of those same counties would likely come to regret it not long afterwards.

Also just as a brief note I think my information on this is like more than a year old and I don't think I could find it again to to quote it. So if someone has better/more up to date info that negates anything I've said feel free to post it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's always a little odd seeing the people who rely on the benefits of bigger government constantly doing what they can to have a smaller government.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

they also rely on those big cities they hate so much to provide some of the funding for the services and infrastructure they no-doubt take for granted.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Exactly this. It's the same situation here in Washington. These people who want to leave Oregon and Washington for Idaho don't recognize how much of their infrastructure is paid for by the western sides of the states. Frustratingly, many of them somehow think that they are the ones sending their tax dollars to the "liberal" areas, when it is very much the other way around.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Electoral college. Idaho always goes red, Oregon always go blue. Moving population from Oregon to Idaho transfers electoral votes from a blue state to a red state.

Whether it matters or not depends on whether it changes the tipping point state in any given election, which is hard to know in advance, but for the red team it is at worst identical to the current setup and at best a small boost to their chances in a presidential election. Conversely for the blue team it can either be meaningless or a slight negative.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

a shift of ~ 240k people from oregon to idaho would result in oregon going back down to 5 congressional districts, and idaho gaining one for three. so one electoral vote moves from a reliably-democratic state to a republican one. that one elector could very well swing a presidential election.

iirc, changes to state boundaries requires approval of both states and congress (and also the president, who would have to sign-off on the legislation passed there). oregon would never go for it--not entirely sure idaho would be on-board, either, even with the thought of gaining a congressional seat. providing state services and funding to that region would be a perpetual net-drain on idaho's economy.

[–] dynamojoe 8 points 1 month ago

Fuck votes. Let them buy their way out. Once a fair value for the property, infrastructure, and future revenue is determined that value becomes the baseline for negotiations and the auction can begin. Oregon loses some freeloaders, gains a windfall, and becomes even more blue.

[–] Crackhappy 8 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I say let's split oregon in twain, then let western Oregon join Washington and northern California to create an Ecotopia.

[–] aeronmelon 10 points 1 month ago

cough Republic of California cough

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Let eastern Washington split off too and call them East and West Cascadia.

[–] jj4211 8 points 1 month ago

Keep in mind the presumptive next step is reallocating electors to give Idaho more of them

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Not really a thing that can be done. The state legislature would have to approve it and so would Congress.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/04/18/the-potential-boondoggle-of-greater-idaho/

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