Would Oregon necessarily be against this? This seems like a great way to (a) get rid of nut jobs from the state legislature, and (b) get rid of a bunch of counties that sinkholes (financially speaking).

You’re being downvoted, but living in Oregon I don’t really see the problem. I’m not really attached to borders and I’m trying to understand why other people are. It is an aspect of political science I’d like to know more about if people have useful sources.

It's pretty messy and would need to have some constitutional support drawn up. E.g. you probably wouldn't do it by county per se, it might be better to make it work by congressional district.

County borders make much more sense. Congressional district boundaries change much more often. They also mean nothing to people in terms of their geographic identity. No one says, "Oh yeah, I live over in the 13th District."

A properly drawn congressional boundary should have a predictable number of citizens, however. Arbitrarily choosing county boundaries (and why county boundaries instead of some other method?) would probably upset the balance of population and require reallocation of representatives. Or maybe the price of seceding from your state is that you don't get to take the representation with you and therefore must wait until the next census to clear it up.

I mean, stuff like school board and police departments are often organized by county, no?

Honestly I see this failing in Oregon not because anyone is particularly against it, but because the Republicans in the state legislature have no power and the issue would never be brought to the floor.

True.

But for the sake of argument, say they somehow can. What then? Would they actually go through with it?

I suppose it goes to their own personal careers. Would they have a better chance of personal success in the new Idaho legislatures or in the current Oregon one?

Seeing that the population of Oregon is 4.2M and the new Idaho would be relatively unchanged at 1.7M (these counties combine to 0.06M people), I'd suppose they would want to stay with Oregon as the prestige and career flexibility would be greater in a more populous and richer state. Whatever the new districts of new Idaho would be, these new-comers would still be a small fraction of the legislature.

The only way I can see that they would have better careers in new Idaho would be in national politics. And then they have to fight amongst each other and the old Idaho politicians, all of whom would be jealous at the attention these new-comers would have. Unless one of them is especially gifted/lucky, I'm not seeing that as a high likelihood.

> I'd suppose they would want to stay with Oregon as the prestige and career flexibility would be greater in a more populous and richer state

I don't think this really tracks. Being a minority state legislator sucks; you're basically completely ignored. I think most politicians would much rather be in the majority party in a smaller state than a minority in a larger state.

> Would Oregon necessarily be against this?

Yes, Western/urban/blue Oregon is against this. I don't think there's a simple self-interest-based reason like "we would lose X if they left," but it is considered an unserious idea, would involve large-but-not-well-understood costs, and there's no reason to do it.

But what would the cost be to those western Oregonians? I just feel like in their position I’d be tempted to say “don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”

I just meant the general bureaucratic cost of effecting such a change, but I probably shouldn't have mentioned cost as I don't think it's a big factor in the general opposition to the idea. You're right that it wouldn't cost any of us much of anything directly, and some western Oregonians probably do feel that way, especially about Malheur Co, which is more or less synonymous with nationalist terrorism.

But I would guess a more common opinion is opposed, and I think it's more that it's not taken very seriously due to the lack precedent and the political impossibility than that it's fiercely opposed.

Considering that the impacted region has a lot of forestry, there are environmental concerns with how they will protect the land in their new state's regulatory system.

Most of these forests are owned by the federal government. Oregon owns less than half of its land.

So it's about maintaining jurisdiction/control?

Wouldn't Idaho be capable of regulating that stuff?

You are of the opinion that the "nut jobs" in Oregon are not currently residing in Portland, attempting to burn down federal courthouses for hundreds of days at a time?

There were several incidents involving a fire near the federal courthouse in Portland, but not "for hundreds of days at a time" and reports also indicate that in at least some cases the fires were on the pavement and were not attempts to burn down the courthouse. You could argue that the people who set them are nut jobs, but they don't represent the majority of Portland residents, even more than the Proud Boys who regularly invade Portland looking for hippies and antifa people to beat up are the majority.

Fox News reports the same dumpster fire each night (often just reusing video footage each day), I’m not sure how serious they are if they are aiming to burn down the courthouse. Yes, dumpster fires are illegal and those starting them should be punished, but it’s a stretch to say they are trying to burn down the courthouse.

I don't watch Fox News, wouldn't know. But you're under the impression that the illiberal black bloc collectives do not exist in any serious capacity in Portland?

They do exist, but their numbers and impact is overblown for propaganda reasons on the right.

Numbers being overblown? The protests from the left which have dominated the public consciousness have been motivated around the idea that unarmed black people are being killed en masse by the police, a fate literally less likely to happen than a person being struck by lightning. Please explain to me how you determine what exactly constitutes numbers being overblown for propaganda purposes.

The [to-be-]seceding counties are strongly in opposition to the currently governing policies in Oregon, so it's quite expected that they (i.e. Oregon government and the petitioners) perceive each other as "nut jobs".

Or he just knows what this audience would prefer to hear.

I believe an important first step would be to gauge the support of the constituents in the move before deciding to move without their voice.

Time for a constitutional amendment to curb non-consensual government. State and federal government should have a generational opt in.

We have have that every two years: it’s called elections.

Half of the country is pissed no matter who wins. Imagine being born married and no option for divorce.

If every state is gerrymandered beyond all sanity, are any of our elections valid?

Elections for senators and governors are, or at least are more valid: no electoral college and no gerrymandering of districts. Of course, vote suppression is still there, and simply lying, but it's an improvement.

Governors, yes. Senators: Wyoming gets 2 (500k people), California gets 2 (40M people). Rural people are hugely represented. Statehood for DC would help a bit with the rural/urban imbalance.

Also, not all states are equally gerrymandered. Vermont and Wyoming each have a single representative, so they have no electoral boundaries to manipulate. And California uses a non-partisan electoral commission to adjust electoral boundaries. In states where redistricting is still a partisan process it is not all equally shameless.

States are typically gerrymandered on the state representation (state legislature) level as well as with federal congressional districts.

I'm guessing it would be less intrusive to adjust the district boundary process to try and reduce gerrymandering. And perhaps adjusting the voting process to something more reflective of values than first-past-the-post.

Redrawing state boundaries is a much bigger deal.

I suppose they wouldn’t be if your entire electoral profit and loss statement comes down to one seat in the goddamned House of Representatives and we are all slaves to lines on a map because those lines, those lines are destiny.

But srswtf123, seriously, wtf? You tell me how many offices you were asked to fill in the last ballot you filled out and how many completely asinine laws you were asked to vote yes or no on. Constitutional amendments are two points if you got any of those on your ballot. In my neck of the woods, the locals love sticking complete crap in our constitution to keep it outside the reach of State courts.

MA few states don’t practice gerrymandering; eg Washington and California both use non partisan or bi-partisan redistricting committees (so legislative majorities don’t matter).

I don't see why Oregon would object unless there is some industry out there that is paying megabucks in taxes.

Dumping a bunch of people sucking down more money than they pay seems like a win for Oregon.

Idaho, on the other hand, might object. That would be comedy gold.

"We secede." "Congratulations! Good luck finding somebody who wants you, though."

It sets a bad precedent. Any county can just vote to break off into another state due to political reasons or to form their own state? Either one party will use that to their advantage and disallow the other party from doing the same, or every state will devolve into fragments. Why stop at counties? Why can't zip codes choose the grouping that best represents them too?

I fail to see how this would be a 'bad precedent' or 'problem'. Why is keeping arbitrary borders established over a hundred years ago more important than better representation and sortition?

The balance of seats in the Senate

>" The balance of seats in the Senate "

Do you mean the House? I think the Senate would still have 2 senators per state, and state-level electoral results are unlikely to change if an alienated minority from one state secedes, in favor of joining a more (politically) similar state.

I'd imagine a common theme would be for red counties in deep blue states to leave and join their light blue neighbors, which may shift them red. (Or vice versa.)

For example if upstate NY joined Pennsylvania, then the D senator from PA would very likely lose. Or if (Republican-leaning) inland California joined Nevada, then Nevada would probably tip red. Or maybe (heavily blue) Jacksonville and Gainesville get fed up with DeSantis, and leave Florida for Georgia, cementing GA as a solid blue state.

what makes you think there light blue neighbor would have them?

What happens when you get down to the last county and they also want to join another state?

If there were a one-county state, it would benefit from so much graft that they'd never join anyone else. Imagine having two senators, one congressman, and three electoral votes, all in one county! Every presidential candidate would stop there and promise them the moon!

I imagine the first time a county successfully split to join another state, a lot of states would just abolish counties altogether. Then everyone can be in a one-county state...

Rhode Island is close enough and mostly doesn't get paid much attention.

> Any county can just vote to break off into another state due to political reasons or to form their own state?

While your question is still an interesting thought experiment, it is worth noting that OP was referring to counties moving between two existing states, not counties seceding a former a _new_ state, which would certainly have different ramifications.

There has been an idea of the west coast states seceding from the Union to form a new country (Cascadia) for quite some time. Though I imagine it’d be a more narrow strip than the whole of Oregon, Washington, and California.

It's a natural next step. It's hardly a slippery slope argumentative fallacy to suggest the precedent would extend to a logical next step.

And are counties only allowed to do it if they are contiguous with their desired state?

Well, the precedent would not be binding in any way - the precedent is that everyone (Oregon,Idaho,Congress) must agree, so any of them can veto for any arbitrary reason, and Oregon agreeing on these particular counties going to Idaho does not mean they would or should accept any other cases just because they vote so.

Well for one, House representatives are apportioned based on population.

Is there enough population in these counties to make any difference?

That's fine, it doesn't matter what state the representative is associated with, and baring rounding errors the number of representatives would stay roughly the same?

The more worrisome effect is on the electoral college and the senate, but I think tying this to DC statehood would get rid of that.

> it doesn't matter what state the representative is associated with, and baring rounding errors the number of representatives would stay roughly the same?

The [Republican] Idaho legislature would get to gerrymand the districts instead of the [Democratic] Oregon legislature.

Fair point I didn't think that far. But now as I do, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho%27s_congressional_distri... they are all Republican by wide margin already, so there's no real gerrymandering to do.