Greater Idaho and Split California? What’s Up With That?

In Oregon, proponents of Greater Idaho have gotten a reading in the state legislature. Before Election Day last year, some in mainstream media were claiming the idea had lost momentum. Then some additional counties voted to join Idaho. Maybe the news reporters need to get outside Portland once in a while. If you’re counting, 11 counties want a divorce from the left coast.

I always enjoy reading the comments from people who say it’ll never happen. You know, the usual downers with no imagination. If you haven’t noticed, the America we grew up in doesn’t any longer exist. Left hates right and right despises left. The chasm is growing.

Yes, there are hoops…

…Meanwhile, in California, there has often been discussion about the state breaking up. One proposal was to create five states out of one. There was an effort to create a state called Jefferson. Some northern counties even support the Greater Idaho concept. People in the Golden State aren’t waiting to see which way the wind blows. Overnight, a friend shared this link…







https://newsradio1310.com/greater-idaho-and-split-california-whats-up-with-that/






The effort isn’t going away. The divisions in Oregon and Ca. grow deeper. The east vs west and urban vs exurban/rural differences only grow deeper as we go our separate ways and live totally different lives and lifestyles.

 

There is no state in the union that I dislike more than the state of California. I go to lengths to avoid calling myself a part of it. I’m not sure where the news station that this author is sourced from is but the sentiments expressed are very real about UpState CA, Eastern and southern Oregon, and rural eastern Washington St. The divide between secular progressive coastal urban areas and theistic friendly or tolerant conservative/libertarian inland exurban/rural nationwide is only growing and it is most glaring in the three west coast states. Fortunately all three west coast states are so large and their urban cores so concentrated where they are, there is no way that when they pass ridiculous one size fits all laws, we can defy or ignore and there is no way they can actually control it all or us all. In our tourism promotion we are UpState CA not California or Ca. We create our own identity. Tahoe, Sacramento. and the Bay Area are NorCal. We are UpState.

issuu.com/scwa/docs/25418_shasta_mag_2022_final_low_res_without_crop_m/6?ff

www.upstateca.com/

 

An interesting alternative idea…

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/20...ifornia-holds-10th-constitutional-convention/

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/02/us/california-far-north-identity-conservative.html

It looks like a beautiful place. A pity you can't just relax and enjoy it..

 

What's up with that? Well, Oregon and California are very unlikely to approve it, Congress is fairly unlikely to approve it, and it's up in the air (though far more likely than the rest) if Idaho would approve it.

Your best bet would be to present it to OR and CA as expelling dangerous rural radicals from your state. Emphasise that it would allow each to go even more insane with left wing policy and there might be a small chance.

 

I read that article when it first came out 5.5 years ago. Our economy has improved markedly during that time thanks to the Trump administration and its policies. The feelings if anything are even worse now. We lost that court case and have no hope for Jefferson unless it is part of a senate and electoral compromise between the two national parties over bringing Puerto Rico in as a state. Some of the most upstate CA counties are latching on to the eastern Oregon counties effort to become part of Idaho instead. We greatly relished our support of Trump both times and our near total defiance of the lockdowns and mandates. We are way ahead of precovid job and income levels and we have the 4th strongest small city economy in the US here. Believe me, politics is not all consuming here. We do enjoy our outdoors and our cultural attractions here as well as the slower pace lifestyle, our parks, and better than most K-12 schools for our kids. That NYTimes article underestimates us. See:

https://www.shastaedc.org/

https://www.upstateca.com/

https://www.caculturaldistricts.org/redding

 

Thanks, I'll have a look.

As I said another post I'm all for the US having distinct states with unique characteristics and politics and not a big mush.

I take your point between the distinction of rural and Urban. Over regulation, city taxes, gun control, (some) environmental regulations are designed from the perspective of urban situations and might not work well for you guys.

On the other hand the city folk would contribute a lot more in taxes per area and that might filter through to you beneficially, for example large road mileage per capita, higher maintenance per capita rural schools, etc (I don't know the details, just giving an example)

 

Your points are well thought out. We do chafe under their taxation, regulations, gun rules, and environmental matters. Our area depends in part upon tourism due to our natural environment and we protect it well enough without their input. Liberals in the cities have greatly limited logging and mining in areas that can sustain it managed properly. Eco freak urban people refuse to fund management of the forests to get fire fuel like dead and dying trees and lower brush that grows high enough that fire that burns them reached the branches of the trees and causes an inferno of flames 100 feet over the tops of 100 ft tall trees at high speed. They wanted the state to pay to have it done at tax payer expense and the state dispose of of the waste rather than let us do it. They said they’d rather the forest burn to the ground rather than see local wood companies get any money from it by processing any of it into paper and lumber. Well nothing got done and we lost 250,000 acres and 1200 homes here in my local area destroying a national forest recreation area in the process. The Carr fire.
As to the funding, research was done to show that Jefferson would be viable economically as a state. The five Northern most counties that would be part of Greater Idaho are better off than the average Idaho county. The reason the state spends more here than we pay in is because of all of their regulations. We get along with other California cities that are more democrat than republican. Stockton down to Bakersfield as well as Vacaville and Fairfield, Santa Rosa, San Bernardino, Riverside, Anaheim, etc. our issue is with the inner Bay Area cities and LA.

 

I don't see the CA legislature letting any of CA go. A constitutional amendment to make the formation of new states within existing states easier might be more likely than CA parting with any of CA.

 

Jefferson is forming a new state within an existing one. You are correct that under current circumstances it won’t happen. They’d rather keep spending far more on a thinly populated rural region than it sends in in tax revenues because to them controlling rural conservatives is worth the cost financially. The only hope we have is if Dems ever decide to make Puerto Rico a state and they have to make a senate, electoral college, House balance compromise with the GOP. Making Jefferson with the same number of representatives and electoral college votes as PR and balancing their two senators. Since there are no other territories big enough or populated enough to become states, democrats will need to let a conservative rural region of a big blue state (Ca, Ill, NY) become a state in order to overcome GOP opposition to PR statehood. The same would apply to DC, but that new offset state would only need 1/4 the population to offset its representative.

 

Makes sense, but DC can't become a State without the concurrence of 38 states.

 

I agree with that but democrats are pushing another idea to get around that which might work. They intend to shrink the actual district to the area around the buildings of the branches of government, the mall, and the memorials and limiting the words of the constitution to that smaller area while making a state of the rest. They use the precedent of half of the original being given back to Virginia and not being challenged. I think that if they did that to the district that the rest should go back to Maryland rather than create a new state. Ultimately if they ever try to proceed the Supreme Court will be the final word.

 

The district has three Electoral College Votes and it will take a Constitutional Amendment to change that, and the WH would be the only voters in the District, so the occupants of the WH would have 3 ECV.

Yes. The precedent would be these neighborhoods returning to Maryland.