Greater Idaho: A State For Lincoln's Party
When political diversity becomes unpalatable.
What Would Greater Idaho Look Like?
Total Population: 3.0 million residents (1.87 million registered voters)
Prospective State Capital: Boise, ID
Major Universities: Boise State University, Oregon Institute of Technology, Eastern Oregon University
Notable Monuments/Attractions: Crater Lake National Park, Mount Shasta, Oregon Butte
Number of House Seats: Greater Idaho - 4 (+2) / Washington - 10 (no change) / Oregon - 5 (-1) / California - 51 (-1)
Idaho Statehood History
Throughout the 1860s as the various northwestern territories were slowly organizing into states, many proposals were fielded and denied that would have incorporated areas of the Inland Northwest into its own state. One of the most prominent proposals was entertained at the turn of the century by the Spokane Chamber of Commerce and requested an adjustment of several boundaries throughout the Inland Northwest.
The Lincoln Plan (1907)
The first move in this plan was to create new eastern borders for Oregon and Washington that aligned with California’s present day border, stripping down both states to their present-day urbanized and coastal counties. Present-day Idaho would have been sliced in half across its center, with all of the counties in Idaho’s Panhandle being incorporated into a brand-new state named after President Abraham Lincoln. Those remaining rural counties jettisoned from Oregon and Washington would be split evenly between Lincoln and “new Idaho,” following Washington’s current southern boundary east.
While there were many proposals like the Lincoln Plan swirling around right at the time of the “birth” of the West, present-day Idaho was the closest anyone came to creating a true “Inland Northwest” state. Throughout the state’s history, Idaho voters regularly voted for conservative candidates and regularly sent Republicans to represent them in Congress. Meanwhile, citizens in Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon voted similarly to Idaho residents but were routinely outnumbered by the more quickly growing coastal cities that typically voted for more liberal candidates. This divide continues to shape politics throughout the Northwest to this day. In recent years conservatives have ‘migrated’ to Idaho from neighboring northwestern states. Instead of leaning into these trends, the Greater Idaho Movement attempts to ‘move’ Idaho to where conservative voters already are.
The Greater Idaho Movement
The Greater Idaho Movement was launched in the wake of the 2016 election by Inland Northwest Trump voters who were fed up with the power imbalance brought on by current state boundaries. Advocates of the movement argue that voters in places like Eastern Oregon, Southeast Washington and Northern California all share much more in common with conservative voters in Idaho than they do with voters in their own respective states. They also contend that the current boundaries dilute the true power of the conservative vote in the region, splitting votes across several states rather than combining them into one state that would have more sway in Congress. The movement explicitly uses the 2016 presidential election results as a roadmap for where to move borders, showing that the movements leaders aren’t necessarily motivated by long-standing historical divisions. (They basically used the 2016 election as a fealty test, any county that didn’t support Trump strongly enough didn’t receive an invitation.)
Is Greater Idaho Possible?
The movement is designed to grow in phases: Phase 1 focuses exclusively on convincing counties in Oregon to secede and join Idaho; Phase 2 expands the scope and lobbies for several counties in Washington and California to help make Idaho “even greater.” To their credit, the phased plan helps denote clear milestones that must be crossed in order to generate success. The first step of Phase 1 has already scored some wins with several counties across Oregon voting in support of seceding and joining Idaho. This grassroots approach to secession may prove fruitful in the next step of Phase 1: lobbying both the Oregon State Legislature and the US Congress to approve of the land transfer once enough counties join the movement.
Most high-ranking state and federal bureaucrats see the Greater Idaho movement as a distraction. Despite rural voters showing support and openness towards the idea, politicians highlight the incredibly difficult nature of re-drawing borders around existing infrastructure and residents. Moving borders requires state governments to renegotiate infrastructure ownership and natural resources like water rights. They’d have to manage incredibly expensive bureaucratic transitions like changing street addresses and coordinating the transfer of thousands of state employees like firefighters, policemen and city planners. There would also likely be significant population shifts happening as a result of any border shifting because many residents in these areas don’t want to live in Idaho.
Personally, I don’t think the Greater Idaho movement will reach its goals. Even though some Oregon voters have voiced their support through a vote, the movement’s organizers are looking at the issue from an almost exclusively political lens and aren’t reckoning with the clear challenges that would affect everyone in the Inland Northwest, regardless of how they view the movement. What would they rename Eastern Oregon University if its no longer actually in Oregon? What happens to cannabis dispensaries who are now operating in a state where medicinal cannabis use is still illegal? Can state-certified workers across a multitude of industries still work in their communities, or will they have to be retrained and re-certified under new state regulations?
These are incredibly important questions that affect many people’s jobs, homes and families in ways that are obfuscated when reducing the proposal to lines drawn on a map. Politicians are likely to reject the proposal because the process is poorly thought out and will likely cost all state governments involved an exorbitant amount of time and money. Greater Idaho advocates certainly stumbled on a novel idea by avoiding the problems associated with the creation of a whole new state, yet they didn’t address the clear hurdles present in transitioning hundreds of cities and towns from one state government to another.
To be clear: recent votes seen in both Oregon and Idaho don’t move borders.
Morrow County voters approved a ballot question to require the county Board of Commissioners “to meet three times annually to discuss relocation of the state border.”
Harney County voters approved a county measure to require “the county court to begin holding meetings regarding border relocation.”
Nothing will change without votes from both state legislatures AND invovlement by the United States Congress.