Eastern Oregon continues fight to secede and join Idaho, with voters in 11 counties approving ballot measures.
By Eileen Griffin
Several eastern counties are attempting to leave the state of Oregon and join Idaho.
Conservatives in the more rural eastern part of the state have gathered signatures for ballot measures that have now passed in 11 counties, The Seattle Times reports. The measures require further discussion of seceding from Oregon to join the neighboring state of Idaho.
The “Greater Idaho” movement would basically move the line dividing the states so that the 11 counties would be inside the border of Idaho, wrote Mike Baker and Hilary Smith for The Seattle Times.
“Despite being a political long shot, the sustained and growing interest from residents in the area and attention from politicians in Idaho have illustrated how much the state is already divided in spirit,” said Baker and Smith.
Values Diverge
The values of western Oregon, and the influence of the Left in Portland, are imposed on an unwilling population in eastern Oregon. In Portland, crime is out of control, as Heartland Daily News previously reported. Policies coming out of the west side of the state, such as the soft-on-crime programs are not supported by the more conservative east side of the state.
“Greater Idaho,” the organization leading the effort to secede from Oregon, cites radical leftist policies, such as defunding the police, pursued in Oregon’s most populous metropolitan area, the City of Portland, on the Willamette River, as reasons for secession.
“Rural Oregon is in a bad relationship with Willamette Valley,” the website states, “[and] their politicians, who won’t stand up to the never-ending series of radical social experiments such as defunding the police and letting rioters and arsonists run wild.”
Crime, Education Issues
Early in 2022, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) offered clemency to over 1,200 criminals, Oregon Live reported. One of the criminals Brown released was Sterling Cunio. At the age of 16, Cunio, along with another man, kidnapped a young couple at gunpoint, tied them up, forced them into a ditch, and shot them to death. Convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison, Brown gave him clemency.
“Thousands of hardened state prisoners were released early from state prison recently because of Portland politicians’ warped morality,” the Greater Idaho website states. “But they infringe on your 2nd Amendment right to defend your family.”
The secession movement also cites leftist control of education and imposition of radical policies for school children.
“Oregon’s state school curriculum teaches radical theories on race, gender, sexuality, and anti-Americanism,” states the website. “Oregon limits charter schools, homeschooling, and local control.”
Rural, Urban Divide
People are sorting by partisanship, says Law Professor Paul Schiff Berman in a video for Scripps News.
“We increasingly in this country have an urban/rural divide in our politics,” said Berman. “As our cities and our suburbs become ever more diverse and progressive and our rural areas become more and more white and conservative those rural areas are feeling as if they would want to join more rural states.”
There are several secession movements in progress across the country, News Nation reports.
“There are certain communities so frustrated with crime and violence and politics that they are looking at splitting off from whatever state or city they are part of and creating their own independent communities,” News Nation said.
‘Good America, Bad America’
Western Oregon doesn’t understand the rural lifestyle, longtime eastern Oregon rancher Neal Dow told Vice News.
“We are being dictated to by people who know nothing about ranching, people who have no idea how we make a living,” Dow said. “A lot of those people think that a T-bone steak comes from Costco,”
Dow ranch manager Lonny Carter adds, “We have enough responsibility and then you have the government coming in trying to take our freedoms, taking away our Second Amendment rights and our First Amendment rights unless you are a libtard or a democrat.”
When asked if there are two Americas, Carter replied, “Yes, a good America and a bad America.”
With several legislators in Idaho supportive of the effort, the Greater Idaho movement is expected to proceed.
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