Movement to break off part of Oregon to join with Idaho has legs again

A grassroots movement by conservatives to break off part of Oregon and merge it with Idaho has made headlines again.

The Greater Idaho movement is looking to redraw the border between Oregon and Idaho so that Eastern Oregon will no longer be associated with its more liberal western side, as reported by Fox News on Monday.

Fox News stated that earlier this month, Oregon Representative Mark Owens put forth a bill that could further the movement.

HB 3844 “Establishes the Move Oregon-Idaho Border Task Force to document the state and federal legal and legislative processes that must take place to relocate the Oregon and Idaho state boundaries to include specified Oregon counties in Idaho,” the Oregon State Legislature’s website states.

The movement to sever half of Oregon has been going on for years but as a commentary in The Oregon Capital Chronicle explained in December, group members are hopeful President Donald Trump will act.

Previous coverage: Group hopes merging part of Oregon with Idaho will end ‘stagnating policies’

According to Oregon Capital Chronicle writer Randy Stapilus, the Citizens for Greater Idaho wrote a letter to Trump, who was not yet elected at the time, asking for help in their mission to divide Oregon. At the time of publication, Dec. 19, Stapilus said Trump had not responded.

However, with Trump now president and a bill in motion, Eastern Oregon could be a step closer to becoming Idaho.

But why not just move to Idaho?

“We love our communities,” the Greater Idaho movement wrote on its website. “We’ve invested years into relationships with friends, family, employers, churches, shops and the land. It makes more sense for conservative counties to be under Idaho governance than Oregon governance. Eastern and southern Oregon voting patterns are very conservative; it would be expensive and wasteful for the majority of the 873,000 of us to try to find someone to buy all our homes and farms so that we can build new homes in Idaho.”

According to a December KUOW story, voters in more than a dozen Oregon counties have passed initiatives, over the last four years, that require commissioners to meet regularly to discuss the border change.

Discussion of Washington state split amid Idaho movement

Similar discussions have been had in Washington but instead of merging, Eastern Washington would become its own state. Representative Rob Chase, a sponsor of a past bill to split Washington, spoke with Dori Monson on KIRO Newsradio in 2021.

“I think east is east and west is west in Washington state,” Chase said. “It’s more of a representation thing. I would say that it would be nice to have our own governor who reflected our values, our own two U.S. Senators, our own Legislature, Supreme Court and we would have a brand new state constitution to craft that I think would reflect values in Eastern Washington better than we currently have in the state of Washington.”

More details: Lawmaker explains why he introduces Eastern Washington secession bill every year

However, the chance of Eastern Washington becoming its own state was not great, Chase said.

“It’s not easy to do it because the State Legislature in Washington state has to OK it and also Congress too,” he shared.

Julia Dallas is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read her stories here. Follow Julia on X here and email her here.