t
he movement by residents of Eastern Oregon to secede from the state and join Idaho has taken a step further after a Republican state senator introduced a bill that would allow 11 counties to join their neighboring state.
State Senator Dennis Linthicum introduced Senate Joint Memorial 2 on January 10, also known as the ‘Greater Idaho’ bill.
‘Eastern Oregon is culturally, politically, economically much more similar to Idaho than it is to western Oregon,’ said Matt McCaw, a spokesman for the Greater Idaho Movement.
‘Our movement is about self-determination and matching people to government that they want and that matches their values. In Oregon, we’ve had this urban-rural divide for a very long time.’
Though the movement has been bubbling for a while, the bill was introduced in the wake of Oregon’s recent state elections, in which a Republican came within four points of winning the governor’s mansion for the first time since 1987.
