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.
I can really sympathize with these guys. I live in a blue dot in one of the reddest states in the country. I have been talking with my friends about doing this exact thing.
Technically this is not secession. It’s partitioning. They want to partition themselves and join Idaho. Just like I’d love to partition my city away from the shit hole parasitic state it’s attached to.
The state level representation just isn’t there for them. They’re so dramatically in the minority that they have no voice in state government at all. So changes are mandated to them, and they’re disillusioned. They love their home and they want the government to recognize them.
Set aside the crazy bullshit they want. The grievance is legitimate, the government completely ignores their desires, they haven’t been able to get the government to acknowledge that, and so they retaliate by saying they don’t want to be a part of it anymore.
To be clear, there is no resolution for people in this situation. They have no control over the state government, no ability to change it. The only choice is to leave, and faced with moving or a long shot at leaving or taking your home with you, you’d choose to take your home, every time.
What do they want that Idaho can provide that Oregon can’t? Some people have to flee entire states over abortion laws for lifesaving medical procedures and they’re told stuff like “well if you don’t like it just move”.
The ability to be more open about being white supremacist garbage. Idaho is a dumpster fire - the state is suffering shortages of medical professionals because of the GQP.
Imagine scraping the money together to move from Idaho to Oregon to protect your health and bodily autonomy, then 300 of your neighbors get together and decide, nope, you’re still in Idaho.
I appreciate that. And this is a great example to whip out when those idiots say shit like that. Obviously moving isn’t an option for most people and for those whom it is, they likely have.
What exactly they want isn’t important, just that it’s very much the opposite of how the state is being run. Admittedly some of the demands fall under crazy bullshit, but the central issue is agency. Politically speaking they have very little, and this is the one lever left to them to pull.
Imagine you’re on a train of trolleys, and every time it comes to a point where a direction could be chosen, every car votes and consistently the ones at the back are out voted by the other cars. You can’t get off and buy another ticket. But you might be able to detach the cars.
Furthermore, reorganization like this should be done far more frequently than it’s being done. Why shouldn’t we allow disparate peoples of similar opinions vote together and govern each other? Why are we locked in to the lines on a map, the last major change of which happened in 1867. Since then, the borders have remained relatively unchanged.
Not only should they, a group of people I likely hold only one fundamental belief in common with, not be afforded some self governance?
So, you’re describing the 47% who do not want to partition?
It’s like saying “it’s not about slavery, it’s about states rights.”
This is caused by Gerrymandering and antidemocratic voter suppression. But Republicans don’t want to fix those issues because they’d be a regional party overnight limited to just the south.
This is something both parties are guilty of. Neither is all that interested in fixing it until they’re the victims of it.
This doesn’t get fixed with a two party system.
Ah yes, those vote suppressing Democrats…
I do think there needs to be a dissolution of the parties, but accusing both sides of being the same is not valid nor useful in the state (lol, country?) that we currently live in.
I’m not saying both sides are the same. I’m accusing two different political parties of employing the same shitty tactics, which they most definitely are.
Is one party more guilty of it? Sure. But denying that the Democrats are gerrymandering is delusional.
Oregon’s 2021 congressional map received an F from the gerrymandering project for giving one party a significant advantage.
https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card?planId=rec6qj1vAOKsBnXnu
Drawn and enacted exclusively by Democrats.
Don’t lie to yourself. They’re still fucking politicians.
Please show me a better map for Oregon districts
There are several available at the link I shared. It might be more than one click but, because you’re presumably able to read, a big smart guy like you should have no trouble finding them.
So you don’t have one
Seriously, just click the fucking link and look around, there are multiple proposals for better maps.
I also couldn’t find a better map on that link. The state itself is strikingly partisan, and I can’t imagine a map that wouldn’t reflect that. That could just be my lack of imagination though.
All governments are run by politicians, by definition. Are you in favor of an anarchist power vacuum that will instantly attract people wanting to set up their own terrible governments?
Though it is only 53% of them that want this. Not that I think that should cancel the entire vote, but it should complicate the situation because a 6% difference shouldn’t change the situation into one that 47% don’t want.
Removed by mod
Austin Texas.
Or Lawrence, KS, or Lincoln, NE, or Atlanta, GA
Omaha is the blue dot in NE. I’m from Nebraska. Even though it might be liberal, Lincoln is definitely a Big Red dot.
Or Asheville NC
Well half of them at any rate. I guess the other half just get shit on? Usually these kinds of measures require more like 3/4 votes.
I see your point, but their “desires” are to oppress or kill the normal people, so I just don’t see their grievances as legitimate. Conservatives are furious that they are unable to use legislation to further their conservative values of racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, transphobia, antisemitism and other conservative bigotry. There is simply no room in a modern culture for hate-based ideologies like conservatism.
We should not legitimize their harmful desires by recognizing their “grievances”. Instead, we should marginalize hate by marginalizing the haters.
In short, fuck 'em.
This is why proportional voting is good. The best answer is to give them more accurate representation as part of oregon.
Without some trade for like a blue part of idaho this trade just stacks the deck one way. not 100% of the people in those districts want to leave and there’s blue parts of idaho, why not trade those for red parts of oregon if it’s “just partitioning” why abandon the 20-49% of whomever is in those red districts that would go straight back to being unrepresented
No, this is just right wingers wanting things 100% their way with no reasonable offer on the the table. There’s no “legitimacy” here.