Oregon and Idaho Conservatives Should Be Leery of Seceding Counties

Rural, conservative counties in eastern Oregon are raising yet again a hardy perennial idea: seceding from their state to join another state. Organizers of the Move Oregon’s Border effort want 18 Oregon counties, and parts of three others, to vote to leave the state and join Idaho, and they eventually would like parts of northeastern California to go with them. Thus far, voters in seven of the counties have approved the secession plan. Some voices on the right would like to see more of this. Michael Anton, writing at the Claremont Institute’s American Mind, argues that the red parts of blue states across the map should do the same.

Oregon’s eastern counties make up 70 percent of the land mass of the state. The eastern half of the state comprises one of Oregon’s five districts in the House of Representatives, with Cliff Bentz currently filling the seat; the second district has been Republican since the 1980 election. But they have just 21 percent of the state’s population, so they are routinely outvoted by Portland and the rest of the left-leaning coastal areas of Oregon on the west side of the Cascades. Eastern Oregon is represented by just four of the 30 seats in the Oregon state senate and by seven of the 60 seats in the Oregon house of representatives. Oregon last elected a Republican governor in 1982; only neighboring Washington has gone longer without one, and only two other states (Utah and South Dakota) have longer streaks of one-party rule. Washington is similarly bisected, with a rural, conservative section east of the Cascades and a more populous coastal region dominated by urban progressives.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Rural, conservative counties in eastern Oregon are raising yet again a hardy perennial idea: seceding from their state to join another state. Organizers of the Move Oregon’s Border effort want 18 Oregon counties, and parts of three others, to vote to leave the state and join Idaho, and they eventually would like parts of northeastern California to go with them. Thus far, voters in seven of the counties have approved the secession plan. Some voices on the right would like to see more of this. Michael Anton, writing at the Claremont Institute’s American Mind, argues that the red parts of blue states across the map should do the same.

Oregon’s eastern counties make up 70 percent of the land mass of the state. The eastern half of the state comprises one of Oregon’s five districts in the House of Representatives, with Cliff Bentz currently filling the seat; the second district has been Republican since the 1980 election. But they have just 21 percent of the state’s population, so they are routinely outvoted by Portland and the rest of the left-leaning coastal areas of Oregon on the west side of the Cascades. Eastern Oregon is represented by just four of the 30 seats in the Oregon state senate and by seven of the 60 seats in the Oregon house of representatives. Oregon last elected a Republican governor in 1982; only neighboring Washington has gone longer without one, and only two other states (Utah and South Dakota) have longer streaks of one-party rule. Washington is similarly bisected, with a rural, conservative section east of the Cascades and a more populous coastal region dominated by urban progressives.