Portland liberals ‘don’t understand the way that people out here live,’ one organizer told NR.
The most recent plan to secede from the state of Oregon was hatched in the summer of 2019 by a group of retirees at a pizza parlor in the small town of La Pine.
Mike McCarter heard about the meeting from a friend, and stopped by to talk through the idea.
The conservative retirees of the rural community were tired of being steamrolled by the progressives in the northwest corner of the state who dominate Oregon politics, he said. In their view, left-wing and urban priorities were being forced on the sprawling rural counties in southern and eastern Oregon by people who don’t understand, or care about, their lifestyle.
The group decided the best course would be to just secede from Oregon and become part of Idaho, the neighbor to the east that they see as more closely aligned with their rural values.
McCarter, 74, a lifelong Oregon resident and U.S. Air Force vet who retired from the agricultural-nursery business, was picked to lead the effort, dubbed Move Oregon’s Borders and Citizens for Greater Idaho. The effort may be a long shot, but McCarter talks about it with confidence.
“Our goal is to let Northwest Oregon to let us go, let rural Oregon go,” said McCarter, a father of nine, a grandfather of 25, and great-grandfather of six. “Let us come alongside the people of Idaho, who support their values, enforce their values, to allow rural Oregon to blossom.”
To many political experts, the plan is fantastical and exceedingly unlikely to succeed. The secession leaders need to the approval of two legislatures (one Republican, one Democrat), two governors (again, one Republican and one Democrat), and Congress. The two states would then have to undergo a complex divvying of assets and debts, as well as debate taxes, pensions and drug laws, among other issues. The New York Times recently reported that the “odds against success are long.” A constitutional-law professor told the Washington Post that it’s unlikely that the Democratic-led legislature or governor of Oregon would want to go “down in history as having given away half of the state’s territory to Idaho.”
“This is a little like a high-school football team beating the San Francisco 49ers. Yes, it could happen. It’s exceedingly, exceedingly unlikely,” William Lunch, a professor emeritus in political science at Oregon State University, told National Review.
But, Lunch agreed, there will likely be more efforts like this as the nation becomes more polarized, as big American cities become increasingly progressive and politically powerful, and as rural conservatives feel increasingly vulnerable and disenfranchised.
In fact, there are already similar efforts underway all across the country, mostly led by conservatives trying to split off from progressive urban centers.
In Colorado, some residents in Weld County on the state’s northern border are pushing to be annexed by Wyoming. In Minnesota, a Republican state representative proposed legislation this year to allow most of the state’s rural counties to become part of South Dakota. Last year, the Republican governor of West Virginia told conservatives in rural Virginia that “we stand with open arms to take you.” And there are efforts under way to form new states out of the more rural and conservative parts of California, Nevada, and Illinois.
“Major urban areas and rural areas have different needs, different interests, different economies, and different cultures,” said G.H. Merritt, the co-founder of the “New Illinois” project, which aims to leave Chicago behind and to carve a new state out of rural Illinois.
More than 20 downstate Illinois counties have already passed advisory referendums supporting a plan to form a new state, part of an effort by another Illinois secessionist group. And for a couple of years now, an Illinois state representative has been pushing a bill urging Congress to lop off Chicago and declare the progressive city the 51st state.
“There’s no reason why this couldn’t be a win-win,” said Merritt, who doesn’t declare an allegiance to any political party or political affiliation. “It’s like a marriage where people have irreconcilable differences. Chicago can go on their path to whatever their Utopia is, and we can get representative government.”
Tree-Huggers in Control
In Oregon, no single event spurred the secession movement, McCarter said. The effort was launched before the state’s coronavirus-related lockdown orders, and before Portland became a national focal point for social-justice protests and anarchist violence.
But the lockdowns and the riots helped people to understand why they want to leave the state.
“It’s just, here’s what happens when urban politics gets involved in not supporting law enforcement, not enforcing the laws, allowing people to what they call demonstrate, but it’s a violent demonstration,” McCarter said. “It doesn’t happen in eastern Oregon, let me tell you.”
McCarter said the progressives and environmentalists that control the Oregon government are hostile to logging and mining, which are critical to the state’s rural communities. He noted that a bill introduced in the legislature this year proposes to ban the sale of diesel fuel. A proposed ballot initiative for 2022 would turn Oregon into a “sanctuary state for animals,” banning the slaughter and artificial insemination of cattle and other farm animals.
“The tree-huggers have taken control,” he said.
The Move Oregon’s Border plan calls for the secession of 18 full counties and parts of three others, taking more than 70 percent of the state’s land mass and latching it onto Idaho. Once that’s done, the idea is to bring some additional Northern California counties along, and form Greater Idaho, which would be one of the biggest states in the country.
The group’s website makes the case for why the effort would be good for Idaho and Oregon.
It’s pretty easy to see why the proposition might appeal to Idaho leaders. The state would be substantially bigger and more politically powerful. It would suddenly have land on the Pacific coast. And especially appealing for Republicans, it would help to cement Idaho as a decidedly conservative state, “to help fight off the blue wave,” McCarter said. “Basically, that’s it.”
For Democrats in Oregon, they would no longer have to subsidize the rural counties, which are financial drags on the state, McCarter said. And though the state would be substantially smaller in size, Oregon would be even more politically left-wing than it is now. There would be fewer pesky Republicans to slow down progress in Salem.
McCarter acknowledges rural Oregonians and Idahoans would have to make some concessions. Moving the border would move Oregon’s hard- drug decriminalization efforts further from Boise, but rural Oregonians and Idahoans also would have to drive farther to buy marijuana, which has been a cash cow in some rural communities. McCarter noted a recent trip he made to Malheur County on Oregon’s eastern border, where he saw a drive-through weed shop.
“The line was incredible,” he said. “And it was almost all Idaho license plates.”
Beating the Drum
Lunch, the Oregon State professor, called the secession effort “fanciful.”
“It’s not going to happen,” he said. “The authorities in Salem have virtually no incentive to send those counties away.”
The secession efforts in Oregon and other states are tied to the hollowing out of rural America by automation, he said. Fewer jobs on farms and in lumber mills has led to young people fleeing to cities and suburbs. And fewer people means less political power, and a feeling by those remaining that they’ve been forgotten or disregarded.
“The economic decline and the really wrenching decline in the standard of living, and the out migration of young people, and that whole range of painful things that have happened in these rural communities gets reflected in a variety of ways,” Lunch said. “This is one manifestation.”
This is not the first time rural communities in Oregon and Northern California have tried to split. Proposals to carve out a new state of Jefferson date back to the 1940s. But as the country becomes more politically polarized, and as the urban and rural cultural divide widens, there likely will be more talk of secession and redrawing state boundaries, Lunch said.
“I think it’s probably not unlikely that we’ll see more of these symbolic sorts of efforts,” he said, “but that’s what they are. They’re symbolic.”
The Move Oregon’s Border effort is more than just symbolism to McCarter. Seven counties in rural Oregon already have voted to direct their local governments to study or promote the effort. In Crook County, local leaders agreed to skip a formal vote and to invite McCarter’s group to their regular meetings to provide updates and to answer questions, said Seth Crawford, the county judge, the equivalent to a county chair or administrator.
Crawford said it’s their job in local government to hear from the public, and they’re open to listening to people on both sides of the secession movement. Crawford said he hasn’t taken a position yet – “We need more information,” he said – but he agrees with McCarter that the political leaders in Salem have priorities that often conflict with the state’s rural residents.
“The people that are making decisions statewide don’t understand the way that people out here live,” he said. “So, those decisions don’t reflect the lives that we live.”
The county votes and support from local governments aren’t ultimately necessary for the secession effort to move forward. But McCarter said they help “beat the drum.”
The secession effort has received some support from lawmakers in Idaho, including from State Representative Barbara Ehardt. She called it “a very intriguing concept.”
Ehardt, who chairs the state House’s energy committee, invited McCarter to speak to a joint meeting with the state Senate. She plans to discuss it with Oregon lawmakers later this year.
“When you have a faction of the state that actually in every aspect more closely identifies with its neighbors, it makes sense to engage in that conversation,” she said. “And for me, it made sense from the moment I heard about it.”
It’s an exceptionally heavy lift, she acknowledged, but “I also view it as a lift that’s not impossible.”
McCarter said he doesn’t really consider the grandiosity of the plan, or the political tightrope he’s got to walk to make it a reality. He just keeps moving forward and adjusting as necessary.
“How do you predict in this day and age what can happen? I mean, who would have predicted that President Trump would ever have gotten elected in 2016?” he said. “If you don’t try, you just sit there and get run over.”