Secede or Succumb: Greater Idaho
“It’s time to secede or succumb,” a retired eastern Oregon chimney sweep wrote in a letter to his local newspaper in 2015. He proposed moving Idaho’s border west to include eastern Oregon and other rural portions of the state. “Imagine for a moment Idaho’s western border stretching to the Pacific.” Grant Darrow’s job cleaning chimneys once took him into homes across an area the size of New Jersey. Conversations in those living rooms, he says, prompted him to propose a change.
Almost seven years later, many Oregonians share Darrow’s vision, coalescing in what is called the “Greater Idaho” movement.
When people describe the differences between eastern and western Oregon, they sometimes speak in colors — the coast’s verdant greens versus the arid and sun-bleached interior. More often, they talk about political shades: the blue on the west that has kept Democrats in the governor’s office for nearly 40 years and the red on the east, along the Cascade Mountains, where red runs so deep that in some counties four in five voters supported Donald Trump in 2020.
Darrow’s imaginative solution is nothing but bold: move the state boundary to the west and join Idaho, one of the most reliably red states in the U.S – a kind of extreme gerrymandering that would redraw the national map to separate citizens by their political beliefs. The Greater Idaho movement would take nearly two-thirds of Oregon’s land and bring it under Boise’s rule.
“It’s a movement to try to maintain our rural values,” spokesman Mike McCarter, a 73-year-old retired plant nursery worker and firearms instructor from La Pine (population 1,900) in Central Oregon, told Oregon Public Radio.
The proposal — amazing probably to those who don’t know the fault lines that divide Oregon — keeps gaining traction (“Modern America’s Most Successful Secessionist Movement,” The Atlantic, Dec. 23, 2021). In eastern Oregon, 11 counties have already voted to advocate for switching to Idaho, obligating local commissioners to meet regularly to discuss the idea. Reportedly the meetings have been sparsely attended, but this is, after all, a region of deserts and buttes, windswept cattle ranges and river canyons. Four remaining counties (including mine, where Republicans outnumber Democrats) are in line to vote on the measure.
The grievances are widespread. People have chafed at elements of the state’s progressive policy that include minimum-wage hikes, climate-related measures, decriminalization of drug possession and, more recently, Measure 114, which mandates new permits for buying a gun and bans possession of magazines that contain more than 10 rounds. (The measure has been challenged by a lawsuit from Harney County, one of the 11 that have voted in favor of Greater Idaho.)
The appeal hits cultural flashpoints. Idaho has more permissive gun laws, and more restrictions on abortion. The state doesn’t allow sanctuary cities, nor does it issue driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally, according to a proposed ballot measure in the group’s literature.
“We believe almost nothing similar to [Oregon’s] west side,” Matt McCaw, told the Toronto-based Globe and Mail. He called state boundaries an imaginary line established at a very different time in history.
Oregon’s secessionist history
Rallying people around state lines and secessionist causes has a rich history in the Pacific Northwest. In 1941, ranchers, miners and loggers on the California-Oregon border staged a rebellion and proclaimed themselves citizens of a new state, the State of Jefferson. Now part of lore and self-identity, State of Jefferson symbols continue to adorn flags, T-shirts and protests.
Recently, followers showed up at a Timber Unity rally against cap-and-trade legislation in the capitol Salem. “They want your power, they want your money, and they want you to shut up and comply,” said a speaker named Shannon Poe, president of the American Mining Rights Association. “Are you going to?”
“No!” the crowd screamed back.
There is also the Cascadia Independence movement, which seeks to erase state lines and form an environmentally conscious bio-region. Other right-leaning groups and militias have energized followers by challenging federal authority and trumpeting county-based rule over natural resources.
While these movements veer all over the political map, there are common threads. An emphasis on local control and a belief in self-determination tops the list, ideas that can be traced to the 19th century doctrine of Manifest Destiny which justified white supremacy and the colonization of Indigenous lands. Oregon’s territorial constitution forbade both slaves or free blacks in the state and this legacy endures. The most recent estimates from the US Census Bureau place the state’s Black population at just over two percent, falling to zero in a few of Oregon’s eastern counties.
The weeds
Over the past two weeks, politicians in Oregon and Idaho have prepared legislation to kick-start negotiations. Facts are emerging that challenge the marriage or, as some would say, the mirage.
Republicans in Idaho see the prospect of adding resources and a bloc of voters that would cement their hold on what has already been a conservative stronghold.
“We look at this huge land mass over there in Oregon. Look at their resources, from water and timber and minerals. Why wouldn’t we at least want to have a conversation?” said Barbara Ehardt, an Idaho representative in favor of movement.
It’s a mixed blessing, though. Several prominent farming and cattle groups in eastern Oregon oppose the prospect of mining, oil, and gas extraction. And many of the counties that would be included in the Greater Idaho proposal are low-income with a high percentage of their residents on Medicaid or qualifying for free and reduced lunches.
“The idea would likely be costly to the state,” said Idaho House Minority Leader Rep. Ilana Rubel (D-Boise).
Indeed, if the great state of Idaho wishes to acquire 62 percent of Oregon’s land, it would need to pay an estimated $10-$15 billion for Oregon’s state lands and buildings
It would be costly, too, to the participating Oregon counties, which currently generate less state tax revenue than they receive (a rural advantage that spreads nationwide) and would likely lose funds as part of Idaho with its lower state revenues.
There’s also another problem: the growing and selling of marijuana. Legal cannabis has become a pillar of the rural economy in Oregon and California, while Idaho still has some of the harshest laws in the country criminalizing it.
Trading for Boise and Sun Valley
In the end, the odds of Greater Idaho movement succeeding, which in the end would require ratification by the US Congress, seem less likely than winning a Powerball ticket.
Still, the secessionist urge seems to be losing some of its marginalism. A new poll from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics finds that large portions of the American public now favor blue and red states going their own ways to form separate countries — in which case western Oregon might snuggle up with New York.
Tongue in cheek, Oregon’s U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (a Democrat) announced a few days ago that he would be willing to talk to Idaho about a deal.
“I would entertain a trade for Boise and Sun Valley,” Blumenauer said in a statement, noting that it would be a good swap for Oregon. Sun Valley and Boise are among the wealthiest parts of Idaho, and the 11 counties east of the Cascades that are Greater Idaho curious are among the poorest in Oregon.
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