dumb of the week

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

For the past couple of years, there has been a collective delusion affecting some Northwesterners known as the “Greater Idaho” movement, in which a rural portion of Oregon wishes to secede from their state and join Idaho to form a new, “greater” Gem State.

We’ve mostly ignored those efforts in the pages of the Reader because, frankly, the so-called “movement” is really just a pipe-dream of libertarian and MAGA-Republicans in Oregon who have been flooding regional newspapers with press releases that suggest secession is just around the corner.

I hate to break it to anyone who believes in this crap, but it’s not going to happen.

Yet, while the Greater Idaho movement certainly deserves a mention in the Dumb of the Week column, this week’s award goes to Idaho Republican Reps. Judy Boyle and Barbara Ehardt, who have co-sponsored a bill to invite Oregon to begin talks with the Idaho Legislature about relocating their state line.

The movement seeks to incorporate more than a dozen of Oregon’s more conservative-minded counties into Idaho. Proponents whine about having no representation in Salem and being overshadowed by liberal Portland, so they want to escape to the right-wing safe space of Idaho.

While the movement has enjoyed some success in the electoral process, it’s still many miles from achieving its goals.

No matter how many of the counties vote in favor of the movement, a successful secession movement would require approval from both state legislatures, a change to the Idaho Constitution and an intervention by Congress. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. It would also require decades of intense discussions between the two states about managing natural resources, Indigenous treaty rights, as well as sticky questions like the legalization of cannabis, which is a major economic force in Oregon.

The fact that we are wasting a single moment entertaining this fantasy in the Statehouse — let alone lending it an air of gravitas in the form of proposed legislation — is testament to the ineffectiveness of our hard-right lawmakers. We should be talking about important issues, such as education funding, property tax reduction, housing and health care, just to name a few far more pressing topics.

Meanwhile, Idaho doesn’t even want the people who move within the current state boundaries to live here. Do we really think Idaho voters are going to agree to having our state expanded 74% in land area and 21% in population?

Dream on.