Oregon residents from two counties are so fed up with their state’s liberal policies and they have decided they have had enough and want to join another state.
The residents are petitioning to have Josephine County and Douglas County join the state of Idaho in favor of their conservative government. The Josephine County ballot initiative would “makes it county policy to cooperate with any state effort to move the Oregon/Idaho border, if any such effort develops.”
The Douglas County initiative would amend an existing ordinance to “add Idaho officials to the list of officials who may be lobbied by Douglas County commissioners. The suggested ballot question is ‘Shall the County Board be authorized to advocate for Idaho legislation, such as making this county a county of Idaho?’”
The group organizing the effort is called “Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho and they must collect 2,429 signatures in Josephine County and 2,955 signatures in Douglas County by August 5, 2020, for the initiatives to appear on the November ballot.
Mike McCarter of La Pine, Oregon and Valerie Gottschalk of Selma, Oregon are the leaders of the movement.
“Rural counties have become increasingly outraged by laws coming out of the Oregon Legislature that threaten our livelihoods, our industries, our wallet, our gun rights, and our values. We tried voting those legislators out but rural Oregon is outnumbered and our voices are now ignored. This is our last resort,” McCarter said in a statement.
Gottschalk claims that the two failed efforts to recall Oregon’s Gov. Kate Brown have caused the movement to grow quickly.
“People here would prefer Idaho’s conservative governance to the progressive/liberal current Oregon governance. Every time I look at the Facebook group Greater Idaho, the group has gotten bigger,” she said.
The group is also taking a look at a California’s Coos County, Curry County, and California’s Del Norte County under the plan as well. In the event, Douglas County would join Idaho the state would gain coastline territory.
If all of these events would take place this is what Idaho would look like.
