State of Jefferson movement evolves into push for "Greater Idaho"

I've written a lot over the years about the would-be State of Jefferson--a proposed new state encompassing a chunk of rural northern California and southern Oregon." Now, news comes that many of the counties wishing to secede from California and Oregon to form a new state would now like to join Idaho. Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post report:

Five rural counties in Oregon voted this week to press forward with a plan to leave the state and merge with neighboring Idaho, the latest move in a long-shot campaign by conservatives who say they’re fed up with Oregon’s left-leaning politics.Voters in Baker, Grant, Lake, Malheur and Sherman counties — sparsely populated areas in the state’s eastern half — approved ballot measures Tuesday requiring local officials to consider redrawing the border to make them Idahoans.

Behind the push is a nonprofit called Citizens for Greater Idaho that argues the predominantly Republican parts of Oregon would be better served if Idaho incorporated them. The group’s president, Mike McCarter, says the expanded state he envisions would become the country’s third-largest in terms of landmass.

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The idea for a “Greater Idaho” began more than a year ago when McCarter, a 74-year-old former firearms instructor from La Pine, Ore., became disgruntled with the state’s liberal leanings. Across the border, he saw more ideological kinship.

His proposal for Idaho to swallow parts of Oregon’s south and east shares DNA with a long-standing push to create a “State of Jefferson,” including Northern California and southwestern Oregon. But asking to join an existing state is a slightly less difficult task than forming an entirely new one. McCarter points to a 1961 land transfer between Minnesota and North Dakota as evidence that it can be done.  (emphasis added)

A mid-April story about this matter in The Oregonian is here.   

Earlier posts about the State of Jefferson movement are here, here, and here. Or just search "State of Jefferson" on this blog to read still more.