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.