The article says "(If your governance is so bad that half the state tries to leave, you're doing something wrong.)" -- but if half the population of the state really wants change, then it should be able to do so with normal democratic functions, right?
Or is this the case that these counties are lower population counties?
Yet we divide up political entities by what land you happened to live on.
We have traditions to allow people within a region of land to self determine their government. Regardless of how many of them there are, exactly.
Which of course is a lie to over-exaggerate their influence -- if you add up the populations of the 12 counties on their map it's only 210k people, and obviously not everyone in those counties agrees with these stupid performative measures, so some number well under 200k is likely the real figure.
It'd likely end up like Brexit anyways - these areas don't appreciate just how much tax money is spent supporting them and their "independent" lifestyles. Changing their allegiance to a poorer, smaller state would result in a much lower quality of life for them.
If I was a resident of portland, I'd certinaly hope no state resources would be used to prevent or contain wildfires entirely within 'Greater Idaho' borders. It's their problem now, and they can raise taxes to deal with it.
I don't live there, so not really my business, but I picked a county at random from that list (Harney) and their county budget is almost $17M. Only $3M of their budget comes from local property taxes, something like $12M in governmental transfers.
> Revenues increased by $3,301,780. Expenditures increased by $1,727,698. This increase in revenue is due to the receipt of grant dollars from the Federal Delegation requests and State of Oregon fair disbursements. The Federal amount was $1,546,000 for communication upgrades through our Emergency Management Department. A new fund #105, the American Rescue Plan, brought in an additional $718,000 in grant revenue. We received $1M from the State of Oregon for fairgrounds infrastructure upgrades also included in the noted increase.
Just massively living off the government teat with no hint of irony.
You put a high value on dollar amounts. It seems you do not realize that money and services that come from far away are often ridiculously inefficient and reflect the priorities and concerns of those that retain control over the attached strings. Their concerns and their money priorities likely do not match the concerns or priorities of the locals. Worse, they can be repulsive, offensive, or run counter to the best interests of the locals rather than contribute to their welfare.
Predator controls. Forest and fire management. Being able to defend oneself (guns). State and federal control of school curriculum. These are all important to most of these rural counties and are not performed well or to their liking. Nor are they empowered to go their own way because these regulations are created at the state level.
It is quite logical for them to ignore "benefits" and money being offered for the things that could be life changing for the better.
They would be rather governed by Idaho, where many more people who live similar lives write those policies that affect them the most.
If these rural areas want to break away and go their own way, they wont have the resources to combat crisis on their own, they can't even do that with their current tax revenue and I don't imagine they are willing to quadruple their property taxes to do so.
I expect they'll whine and yell at other states if they need help. However I'd hope the gov of the remaining area of oregon would flatly tell them no, at least I would.
The apparent subsidies are not properly addressing their concerns. Thus, however much money it sent — it doesn't matter. How does this not address your point of "they are subsidized!!"?
Again. If the state policies prevent proper management of the resources, the money doesn't matter. It's misapplied.
The point that they don't have the resources. No, they don't have the resources to replicate what the state is doing. Parent's point is correct in that. But my point is that they don't WANT to replicate what the state is doing. It's misapplied. Thus, making the cost of the state programs irrelevant. You are assuming that everything on the budget is required to create a functional government. It's not.
I'm speaking strictly about emergency response such as fires, I'm not assuming 'Greater Idaho' is going to have a matching education or social services budget.
Just the most contrived nonsense that lets them keep their frontier mentality with no consideration to how much their lifestyles are subsidized by the people they loathe. It’d be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
Actually seems fitting that the county I chose was where those morons had their national park takeover that got some of them killed. “How dare you pay us millions of dollars to maintain this land!” “Freedom!!!”
Helps if you actually read and respond to my points instead of broad brushing about the apparent irrationality you see. Most people are quite rational in their own sphere if you take the time to understand their perspective.
There you have your solution Idaxit! Leave the US, split the state and rejoin the union (US) in case you still feel like.
...or maybe don't and just use the chance and bring your legislative and judiciary into the 20th century. You will be still a ahead of the then neighbouring US at least by a century. Maybe even other states feel to follow the lead. I've heard Florida is always easy to convince for such a move; maybe skip the war declaration this time. ;-)
Disclosure: I have no clue about the underlying political/"cultural" differences of Idaho in contrast to the rest of the states...or Florida for this matter.
It’s worth noting that West Virginia chose to reject slavery and remain with the Union while the more wealthy slaveowning portion of the state seceded. A proud origin for the West Virginians!
Yeah, for all the shit WV gets, their origin is NOT something to be ashamed of. Virginia was the most powerful and wealthiest state, too - it cost WV greatly to leave. They fought like hell during the war and lost a ton of men.
When I was regularly doing business in PDX, one of the things that struck me was how few people had any idea that there was any part of the state east of Bend. You'd be having this conversation and it turned into some kind of parody or comedy sketch where people really seemed to believe that the earth just sort of ended at The Dalles. I mean that's really far east!!!!.
I recall talking to one guy who was a tech exec that had lived in PDX for decades and I tried to describe where I lived, IE: just get on I-84 and keep going east... you would have thought I was an alien, as he clearly had no idea there was anything on I-84 east of Troutdale.
And that's the gap here... two culturally, economically, completely different peoples. She flies with her own wings...
I'm actually okay with these counties leaving Oregon for Idaho, as long as we also let California, what's remaining of Oregon, and Washington state leave the Union and form their own country--Cascadia.
Yep, every time a natural disaster strikes other states and the federal govt will be asked to pick up the tab because they refuse to have enough tax revenue to meet basic needs of their citizens. Happens already with other states.
> no they want a state where their say matters. You're proving their point
Boise is a spot of Blue in an overwhelmingly Red state. Many Boise voters feel as though their vote doesn't matter because the votes from elsewhere in the state will drown them out. The same logic that would imply someone's say in one of these Oregon counties doesn't matter, would also imply that the say of someone living in Boise doesn't matter.
It's an incorrect presumption. Your say doesn't only matter if you get your way. But it's the one you put forth.
Despite the headline it doesn't seem like the vote has actually happened? The article has only one dumb tweet and a legislator introducing a go-nowhere bill in the Oregon state congress?
The copy on that website gives a good indication of how seriously we should take anything they write. It doesn't have to be a parody website to be dumb!
Here [1] is a video discussing some of the last times this has been attempted in Oregon and a handful of other states. And here [2] is a video specific to California but also covers some of the constitutional laws that would be an obstacle to Oregon.
The US Constitution requires that, to move those counties from Oregon to Idaho, Congress, the Oregon state government, and the Idaho state government would all have to approve the transfer. Not only that, but they'd have to decide what is to be done about debts, state property, and any ongoing projects that the Oregon state government is currently paying for.
Politically, if the move were to actually take place it would help Democrats slightly, by making remaining Oregon more solidly Democrat (though those counties are almost empty).
> (If your governance is so bad that half the state tries to leave, you're doing something wrong.)" -- but if half the population of the state really wants change, then it should be able to do so with normal democratic functions, right?
I see we're still getting mileage out of the whole "population/land" duality, huh? The combined population of all the counties that have voted to leave so far is 205,000 (the red counties, not the grey and green, which have not voted so far), which, assuming the entire population voted to leave, comes out to just 5% of the population, not 50%. For the record, that's not even 50% the population of Multnomah County (the county that has Portland in it).
To be clear -- I have no particular opinion either way about whether counties should be able to switch states like free electrons in metal. In fact, I might lean towards it. I just don't see the need to repeatedly use the lamest, laziest, and cheapest rhetorical techniques in these arguments. For a group that loves to talk about virtue signaling, they sure like to "arguing-in-bad-faith" signal.
I think the issue with Oregon is the one that we see nationwide. Major cities are dictating policy for everyone else. It's almost like the fear of the founders is coming true: Major cities are deciding elections, and everyone else is kind of ignored.
Great! I am sympathetic to arguments around limiting state and/or Federal powers. But the reality is that that is actually less and less often the actual goal. Instead, the goal has become to have "the other side" dictate what goes on, often by trying to incorrectly portray it as an equally large "disenfranchised" side. We can tell this is the case because there is less and less discussion about "protecting minorities viewpoints," as we can see in this very article that can't help itself but to try to portray this issue as "half the population" throwing up its hands and wanting to leave.
This inevitably leads to the actual problem we have in this country: minoritarian rule (that should be obviously worse than majoritarian rule, but again, gets disguised as the "actual majority" or "equally populous opposition" getting a say). If you look at the composition of the supreme court and the senate, along with the contribution to the electoral college from states in presidential votes, it's pretty clear that what gets dictated is lopsided to smaller percentages of opinion, not larger. At the current rate, we are on track to have 66% of the senate representing just 30% of the population by 2040: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/28/b...
This is the problem that vexes me the most (though I'm utterly uneducated on political science). Yes, people generally don't vote with the things that affect others on their mind. So, we can attempt to divide people into groups of "affected by X" and artificially increase the worth of their votes, e.g. "affected by rural issues" vs "affected by urban issues", but that's just so incredibly hazy (there is complex bleed-over between all categories due to indirect or time-delayed effects). And there are too many categories to realistically consider. Do we artificially amplify the votes of black people because there are issues that disproportionately affect them and they are a minority population?
And then you run into problems where there is an issue that affects everybody, but one of these amplified groups has a strongly different opinion on it compared to the general population for some tangential reason, where there's no good argument to amplify any one voice on the topic (lots of examples in right vs left social politics, reflected in the rural vs urban groupings, that aren't intrinsically rural vs urban issues).
Edit: I think the second problem I'm describing is what people are calling "the tyranny of the minority."
> Major cities are dictating policy for everyone else.
Cities contain large quantities of people -- that's why they are called population centers. Large numbers of people generate lots of votes. As compared to locations with fewer amounts of people, cities will have an outsided influence on the outcome of elections.
How else do you want it to work? Normalize vote weight by acreage?
> Cities contain large quantities of people -- that's why they are called population centers. Large numbers of people generate lots of votes. As compared to locations with fewer amounts of people, cities will have an outsided influence on the outcome of elections.
> How else do you want it to work? Normalize vote weight by acreage?
You're implicitly assuming something like a single central authority. I think the idea would be to have more local control, so your local conditions aren't controlled by some distant group that has no concern for them. If the decisions are being made far enough away, there's not that much practical difference between a king and a "population center."
Focusing too much on population gets you a tyranny of the majority.
The U.S. Senate exists to protect the interests of landowners against the overwhelming interests of population centers. That is the bulwark against "tyranny of the majority."
If sentiment is so overwhelming that they can't even win the Senate, then I'm sorry, they lose.
The alternative is tyranny of the minority, which is what we are perilously close to having with egregious gerrymandering and the non-talking filibuster.
> The U.S. Senate exists to protect the interests of landowners against the overwhelming interests of population centers.
No? There's no special property qualification to vote in a senate election.
The Senate exists protect the interests of states as independent political units. That's why senators were originally appointed by state legislatures (i.e. the state governments).
That's funny, down here in Texas, home to 35 million people, cities are 55-60% Democratic but effectively have no representation in the Senate, much of the House, governor and other statewide positions, state legislature, state Supreme Court
...
Effectively we're being told to shut up and serve as economic engines to a bunch of rural backwoods yokels.
"And those bureaucrats in the state capital can stick that in their pipes and smoke it!" ―Charles Montgomery Burns
Yup. In every state/province there is some corner that thinks it would be better off leaving for greener pastures. They love to scream about it when it isn't possible. Alberta wants to leave Canada atm. There was a move in California/Oregon/Washington to join Canada a couple decades ago. Prior to that, Quebec wanted out. And Texans love to talk about how it can leave the US if it feels like it. When push comes to shove it rarely ever happens. The impact on pensions, health care and police coverage of such moves always wins out over angry people angry because everyone lese keeps electing the wrong people.
Most of those 23% don't understand how geography works, and how difficult it would be to export oil (and farm products) through a hostile Canada.
I think there's something similar to Oregan happening though. A minority of Albertans that live in rural areas don't want government by "someone over there."
This is probably not a popular opinion, but I think a bigger state like California needs to be split up. Oregon I'm not so sure. Not for political reasons, but rather for management. If California was two states, instead of one, I think it would be significantly easier to manage.
As a state beneath the federal government, California is almost like its own country. With the same hold true for Texas, possibly.
It would be self-defeating for these counties to leave Oregon, but Salem / Portland should do more to extend an olive branch to the east. These counties are sparsely populated, very agricultural, and generally very poor (a few rich land barrons / ranchers, and then everybody else struggling to make ends meet).
The core problem is that the I-5 corridor really knows nothing about these counties, has no interest in understanding the issues in these counties, and frankly have engaged in utter hubris - we're educated, urban elites and what's best for the Willamette valley is best for the whole state . At the same time, those eastern ranchers et al are convinced those hippy dippy liberals from PDX are the anti-christ. So you've got two cultural groups completely speaking past each other. It's an even uglier divide than the same basic issues we have in Washington State.
While I can't excuse my rural brethren for their often simple and crass political views, I really do wish Salem / Portland politicians would throw them a bone. Land use management, water rights, etc ARE different on the east side of the state. I've seen Salem force these counties to do things that make no sense and are crippling to the economies of these states. So sure, these counties are poor and backwards - and often it seems like Salem wants it to stay that way. While I supported many policies from Kate Brown (and Jay Inslee), they both seem to like to fan the flames over here in the east rather than work to bridge the divide - and that's really frustrating. Will remain to be seem how Tina Kotek approaches this as gov, but my guess is it will be more of the same.
> hippy dippy liberals from PDX are the anti-christ
One could argue that the east side should throw the west side a bone by treating them as humans first in any negotiation -- rather than still trying to play "punching the hippy" politics which worked to a great extent in the 1970s.
The problem of politics of the right today is, that even if you do "throw them a bone", they're not going to stop with the vile rhetoric, so why even bother trying to negotiate with them?
I completely hear and agree with you! In fact, you are being generous - given that rural folks are traditionalists who pride themselves on imagery of respect, authority, religiosity, etc - you'd think they would see the hypocrisy in their vile rhetoric.
It's a challenge - those few rural votes don't make a difference in an election. The few state and national elected officials that come from these areas are in a minority position. But, so long as they feel disrespected (rightly or wrongly) they will continue to pull political stunts (the walkout of Rs in Salem, the Bundy national park takeover, this push to join Idaho) and that could have violent repercussions.
I did a quick check to see what population loss/gain this would lead to. I've only considered the 11 counties that voted yes.
County population
Wallowa 7,545 (on the ballot)
Wheeler 1,451
Morrow 12,303
Klamath 70,164
Harney 7,575
Sherman 1,907
Lake 8,276
Grant 7,272
Baker 16,847
Malheur 31,693
Union 26,212
Total: 191,245
Oregon's population is ~4,240,137, and will be reduced by ~4.5%
Idaho's population is ~1,939,033, and will be increased by ~9.9%
I am wondering, what happens to Umatilla, Gilliam or Wallowa if they vote No? they're surrounded by Washington state north, and seceding counties in the other directions.
Wallowa county (can't believe I'm talking about Wallowa county on the internet...) is a really unique place... my guess is that cooler heads will prevail there because they don't gain anything by joining Idaho. Hell's canyon blocks them from easy transit connections to Idaho - there's basically one road in and out of the county, realistically speaking. They don't gain anything by making a switch - money ties are to Portland already.
75 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 62.2 ms ] threadThe article says "(If your governance is so bad that half the state tries to leave, you're doing something wrong.)" -- but if half the population of the state really wants change, then it should be able to do so with normal democratic functions, right?
Or is this the case that these counties are lower population counties?
Malheur: 31k
Harney: 8k
Lake: 7k
Klamath: 68k
Grant: 7k
Baker: 16k
Wheeler: 2k
Jefferson: 24k
Sherman: 2k
Morrow: 12k
Union: 26k
Wallowa: 7k
https://www.oregon-demographics.com/counties_by_population
It'd likely end up like Brexit anyways - these areas don't appreciate just how much tax money is spent supporting them and their "independent" lifestyles. Changing their allegiance to a poorer, smaller state would result in a much lower quality of life for them.
> Revenues increased by $3,301,780. Expenditures increased by $1,727,698. This increase in revenue is due to the receipt of grant dollars from the Federal Delegation requests and State of Oregon fair disbursements. The Federal amount was $1,546,000 for communication upgrades through our Emergency Management Department. A new fund #105, the American Rescue Plan, brought in an additional $718,000 in grant revenue. We received $1M from the State of Oregon for fairgrounds infrastructure upgrades also included in the noted increase.
Just massively living off the government teat with no hint of irony.
https://www.co.harney.or.us/PDF_Files/Treasurer/Harney%20Cou...
Predator controls. Forest and fire management. Being able to defend oneself (guns). State and federal control of school curriculum. These are all important to most of these rural counties and are not performed well or to their liking. Nor are they empowered to go their own way because these regulations are created at the state level.
It is quite logical for them to ignore "benefits" and money being offered for the things that could be life changing for the better.
They would be rather governed by Idaho, where many more people who live similar lives write those policies that affect them the most.
If these rural areas want to break away and go their own way, they wont have the resources to combat crisis on their own, they can't even do that with their current tax revenue and I don't imagine they are willing to quadruple their property taxes to do so.
I expect they'll whine and yell at other states if they need help. However I'd hope the gov of the remaining area of oregon would flatly tell them no, at least I would.
Again. If the state policies prevent proper management of the resources, the money doesn't matter. It's misapplied.
The point that they don't have the resources. No, they don't have the resources to replicate what the state is doing. Parent's point is correct in that. But my point is that they don't WANT to replicate what the state is doing. It's misapplied. Thus, making the cost of the state programs irrelevant. You are assuming that everything on the budget is required to create a functional government. It's not.
Actually seems fitting that the county I chose was where those morons had their national park takeover that got some of them killed. “How dare you pay us millions of dollars to maintain this land!” “Freedom!!!”
I mean West Virginia decided to leave Best Virginia, and we have N and S Dakotas and Carolinas.
As for the Dakotas & Carolinas, those both entered the US as separate states AFAIK, rather than separating after they were in the US.
Disclosure: I have no clue about the underlying political/"cultural" differences of Idaho in contrast to the rest of the states...or Florida for this matter.
In practice, though, would the 49 remaining states invade Idaho & force them back in? The middle of the state is pretty wild & mountainous.
It’s worth noting that West Virginia chose to reject slavery and remain with the Union while the more wealthy slaveowning portion of the state seceded. A proud origin for the West Virginians!
Pretty badass.
When I was regularly doing business in PDX, one of the things that struck me was how few people had any idea that there was any part of the state east of Bend. You'd be having this conversation and it turned into some kind of parody or comedy sketch where people really seemed to believe that the earth just sort of ended at The Dalles. I mean that's really far east!!!!.
I recall talking to one guy who was a tech exec that had lived in PDX for decades and I tried to describe where I lived, IE: just get on I-84 and keep going east... you would have thought I was an alien, as he clearly had no idea there was anything on I-84 east of Troutdale.
And that's the gap here... two culturally, economically, completely different peoples. She flies with her own wings...
Same thing in California with the State of Jefferson movement. A vocal minority of people that want an outsized say in state politics.
> no they want a state where their say matters. You're proving their point
Boise is a spot of Blue in an overwhelmingly Red state. Many Boise voters feel as though their vote doesn't matter because the votes from elsewhere in the state will drown them out. The same logic that would imply someone's say in one of these Oregon counties doesn't matter, would also imply that the say of someone living in Boise doesn't matter.
It's an incorrect presumption. Your say doesn't only matter if you get your way. But it's the one you put forth.
It matters exactly as much as my say.
It just so happens that their opinions are unpopular.
TL;DW These go nowhere
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEHOopbowqM [video][12 mins]
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=549hAQCHF7c [video][14 mins]
Politically, if the move were to actually take place it would help Democrats slightly, by making remaining Oregon more solidly Democrat (though those counties are almost empty).
I see we're still getting mileage out of the whole "population/land" duality, huh? The combined population of all the counties that have voted to leave so far is 205,000 (the red counties, not the grey and green, which have not voted so far), which, assuming the entire population voted to leave, comes out to just 5% of the population, not 50%. For the record, that's not even 50% the population of Multnomah County (the county that has Portland in it).
To be clear -- I have no particular opinion either way about whether counties should be able to switch states like free electrons in metal. In fact, I might lean towards it. I just don't see the need to repeatedly use the lamest, laziest, and cheapest rhetorical techniques in these arguments. For a group that loves to talk about virtue signaling, they sure like to "arguing-in-bad-faith" signal.
Kind of like the gas stove issue...
This inevitably leads to the actual problem we have in this country: minoritarian rule (that should be obviously worse than majoritarian rule, but again, gets disguised as the "actual majority" or "equally populous opposition" getting a say). If you look at the composition of the supreme court and the senate, along with the contribution to the electoral college from states in presidential votes, it's pretty clear that what gets dictated is lopsided to smaller percentages of opinion, not larger. At the current rate, we are on track to have 66% of the senate representing just 30% of the population by 2040: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/28/b...
And then you run into problems where there is an issue that affects everybody, but one of these amplified groups has a strongly different opinion on it compared to the general population for some tangential reason, where there's no good argument to amplify any one voice on the topic (lots of examples in right vs left social politics, reflected in the rural vs urban groupings, that aren't intrinsically rural vs urban issues).
Edit: I think the second problem I'm describing is what people are calling "the tyranny of the minority."
Cities contain large quantities of people -- that's why they are called population centers. Large numbers of people generate lots of votes. As compared to locations with fewer amounts of people, cities will have an outsided influence on the outcome of elections.
How else do you want it to work? Normalize vote weight by acreage?
> How else do you want it to work? Normalize vote weight by acreage?
You're implicitly assuming something like a single central authority. I think the idea would be to have more local control, so your local conditions aren't controlled by some distant group that has no concern for them. If the decisions are being made far enough away, there's not that much practical difference between a king and a "population center."
Focusing too much on population gets you a tyranny of the majority.
If sentiment is so overwhelming that they can't even win the Senate, then I'm sorry, they lose.
The alternative is tyranny of the minority, which is what we are perilously close to having with egregious gerrymandering and the non-talking filibuster.
No? There's no special property qualification to vote in a senate election.
The Senate exists protect the interests of states as independent political units. That's why senators were originally appointed by state legislatures (i.e. the state governments).
Effectively we're being told to shut up and serve as economic engines to a bunch of rural backwoods yokels.
You're assuming uniform population density.
This is country folk rejecting the city slickers.
Yup. In every state/province there is some corner that thinks it would be better off leaving for greener pastures. They love to scream about it when it isn't possible. Alberta wants to leave Canada atm. There was a move in California/Oregon/Washington to join Canada a couple decades ago. Prior to that, Quebec wanted out. And Texans love to talk about how it can leave the US if it feels like it. When push comes to shove it rarely ever happens. The impact on pensions, health care and police coverage of such moves always wins out over angry people angry because everyone lese keeps electing the wrong people.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/support-for-independent-alber...
Most of those 23% don't understand how geography works, and how difficult it would be to export oil (and farm products) through a hostile Canada.
I think there's something similar to Oregan happening though. A minority of Albertans that live in rural areas don't want government by "someone over there."
As a state beneath the federal government, California is almost like its own country. With the same hold true for Texas, possibly.
The core problem is that the I-5 corridor really knows nothing about these counties, has no interest in understanding the issues in these counties, and frankly have engaged in utter hubris - we're educated, urban elites and what's best for the Willamette valley is best for the whole state . At the same time, those eastern ranchers et al are convinced those hippy dippy liberals from PDX are the anti-christ. So you've got two cultural groups completely speaking past each other. It's an even uglier divide than the same basic issues we have in Washington State.
While I can't excuse my rural brethren for their often simple and crass political views, I really do wish Salem / Portland politicians would throw them a bone. Land use management, water rights, etc ARE different on the east side of the state. I've seen Salem force these counties to do things that make no sense and are crippling to the economies of these states. So sure, these counties are poor and backwards - and often it seems like Salem wants it to stay that way. While I supported many policies from Kate Brown (and Jay Inslee), they both seem to like to fan the flames over here in the east rather than work to bridge the divide - and that's really frustrating. Will remain to be seem how Tina Kotek approaches this as gov, but my guess is it will be more of the same.
One could argue that the east side should throw the west side a bone by treating them as humans first in any negotiation -- rather than still trying to play "punching the hippy" politics which worked to a great extent in the 1970s.
The problem of politics of the right today is, that even if you do "throw them a bone", they're not going to stop with the vile rhetoric, so why even bother trying to negotiate with them?
It's a challenge - those few rural votes don't make a difference in an election. The few state and national elected officials that come from these areas are in a minority position. But, so long as they feel disrespected (rightly or wrongly) they will continue to pull political stunts (the walkout of Rs in Salem, the Bundy national park takeover, this push to join Idaho) and that could have violent repercussions.
County population
Wallowa 7,545 (on the ballot)
Wheeler 1,451
Morrow 12,303
Klamath 70,164
Harney 7,575
Sherman 1,907
Lake 8,276
Grant 7,272
Baker 16,847
Malheur 31,693
Union 26,212
Total: 191,245
Oregon's population is ~4,240,137, and will be reduced by ~4.5%
Idaho's population is ~1,939,033, and will be increased by ~9.9%
I am wondering, what happens to Umatilla, Gilliam or Wallowa if they vote No? they're surrounded by Washington state north, and seceding counties in the other directions.