On Tuesday, voters in Crook County passed measure 7-86, which asked voters if they support negotiations to move the Oregon/Idaho border to include Crook County in Idaho.  The measure is passing with 53% of the vote, and makes Crook County the 13th county in eastern Oregon to pass a Greater Idaho measure.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    5 months ago

    So, this sort of thing requires both Congressional and state approval.

    US Constitution, Article IV, Section 3.

    New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

    Looking at the map, I’d guess that this isn’t because of fundamental geographical differences, but because the current party split tends to be a rural-urban one. Here’s a population density map for Oregon:

    https://d43fweuh3sg51.cloudfront.net/media/media_files/6ee39caa-dd64-494c-b0c6-bb29e1bbee0e/4ab7be15-971f-442b-8fd0-c1134782a003.jpg

    The more rural areas of Oregon, the counties without cities, are, based on current political coalitions, politically more similar to Idaho than to liberal coastal Oregon.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System

    The Sixth Party System is the era in United States politics following the Fifth Party System. As with any periodization, opinions differ on when the Sixth Party System may have begun, with suggested dates ranging from the late 1960s to the Republican Revolution of 1994. Nonetheless, there is agreement among scholars that the Sixth Party System features strong division between the Democratic and Republican parties, which are rooted in socioeconomic class, cultural, religious, educational and racial issues, and debates over the proper role of government.[1]

    The Sixth Party System is characterized by an electoral shift from the electoral coalitions of the Fifth Party System during the New Deal. The Republican Party became the dominant party in the South, rural areas, and suburbs, and its voter base became shaped by White Evangelicals.[2] Meanwhile, the Democratic Party became the dominant party in urban areas, and its voter base diversified to include trade unionists, urban machinists, progressive intellectuals, as well as racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      5 months ago

      A state isn’t being formed: they’re just moving the lines. So I don’t think that comes into play.

      • IamSparticles@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        They’re not, though. Not without the permission of the Oregon state government, the Idaho state government, and the US congress. That’s the point. This is a tiny portion of the population of Oregon. They don’t get to just decide they live in Idaho now.