An Eastern Oregon effort to join Idaho reflects the growing American divide

This is one of the latest iterations of a debate over minority political representation that is as old as this nation’s founding, Gilson said. The U.S. Constitution was written to encourage consensus, she said; the Revolutionary War was fought because people were being taxed but not listened to. “Isn’t that our message?” she asked.

Stephen Piggott doesn’t see it that way.

“I totally understand their concerns,” said Piggott, the momentum program director for Western States Strategies, a Portland-based nonpartisan social welfare organization that campaigned against the ballot measure in Wallowa County. “But for Greater Idaho, there’s no other solution except to say, ‘We can’t find any common ground, so screw it, we’re going to just go up and leave.’”

And while it may not be espousing racist viewpoints, the movement is supported by white nationalists and militia leaders such as Ammon Bundy, Piggott said, harking back to Oregon’s racist founding, when Black people were banned from settling the land. Among the 15 counties that could be part of Greater Idaho, all but three have white populations above 75%, according to census numbers.

Greater Idaho proponents vehemently reject charges of racism or hatred, saying they can’t control the people who agree with their cause. And they say they are not seeking violence, but a peaceful political solution.

“I have people come to me and say, ‘But isn’t this movement kind of racist?’ Well, I had nothing to do with that,” McCarter said, the air around his home still thick with wildfire smoke. “In rural Oregon, if it’s predominantly white, so be it. And we make a point that we don’t get into that angle at all. That’s not what it’s about.”

Retired chimney sweep Grant Darrow said that letting a few counties join Idaho could be a “pressure relief valve” to avoid violence from people long frustrated with Oregon’s policies.

“People are fighting mad,” said Darrow, who sported a handlebar mustache and an “Awake Not Woke” T-shirt in his home in Cove, Oregon, a town nestled in an agricultural valley. “If you’re not moving in a direction that everybody thinks positive, it’s going to blow up.”

But to slice up states to reflect residents’ politics is not how the American political system works, regardless of an urban-rural divide that exists across the country, said Judy Stiegler, a former Oregon Democratic state representative who now is a political science instructor at Oregon State University-Cascades, located in Bend.

“We should be having conversations with each other,” Stiegler said. “The Greater Idaho movement is taking advantage of people’s frustrations. And I believe they’re not being honest about the real objective, which is power.”

The reality of the secession happening is “slim to none,” she said. She expects neither state Democrats nor Congress to endorse the move.

Can it pass the Idaho and Oregon legislatures?

When Idaho Republican state Rep. Barbara Ehardt first heard about Oregon’s movement to join her state, it just resonated with her. Why wouldn’t Idaho be interested in more land, more resources such as timber, minerals and water, and more like-minded people? she asked.

“You can only push people so far, demanding that they acquiesce to some of your non-constitutional whims before people push back,” Ehardt said.

In February, the Idaho House passed her bill to open a formal interstate dialogue with Oregon to secure those counties that want to secede. Although it didn’t move forward in the Senate, Ehardt is “hopeful and optimistic” she can get her bill passed in both the legislative bodies next year. For this to succeed, “it will involve the hand of the Lord.”

When the Oregon state legislature reconvenes next year, Republican state Sen. Dennis Linthicum plans on reintroducing legislation to let those 15 eastern counties secede and join Idaho. His bill died in committee earlier this year.

“I thought we were talking about tolerance and welcoming all ideas and welcoming other thoughts and perspectives, and it turns out none of that is true,” said Linthicum, who voted for the Klamath County ballot measure. “It’s a storyline. And that’s why Eastern Oregonians are fed up with it.”

While she “1,000% agrees” with the reasons why people are so frustrated with the policies coming out of Salem, freshman Republican state Rep. Emily McIntire worries about Eastern Oregonians who have superior health care, child care, food stamps and other state services than Idaho offers, including Oregon’s $14.20 minimum hourly wage compared with Idaho’s $7.25, the federal minimum wage.

“Everybody that’s working at a Walmart in a county in Eastern Oregon, that Walmart can go, ‘We’re going to drop you guys all down to eight bucks an hour,’” she said. “It’s not just like we flip the switch, you’re part of Idaho and everything stays as it is.”

In Enterprise, the meeting wrapped up after more than an hour of discussion involving those in the room and another 30 people who joined by Zoom. The county commissioners finally chimed in.

Though they are officially neutral on the question, all three said they understood the concerns expressed by both sides. Commissioner John Hillock said he’s submitted pieces of legislation, grant proposals for sewer and water projects and new funding requests for the county fairgrounds to lawmakers in Salem and been ignored. He gets it.

As does Commissioner Susan Roberts, who asked attendees to come up with ideas before they meet next in February on how to constructively move forward and get “our friends on the west side of the state” to have a dialogue.

“They don’t get us. On the other hand, I don’t get most of them. Most of the time, I can’t figure it out,” she said with a chuckle. “But that is the back-and-forth that we need.”

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