Do you want Oregon to hold eastern Oregon communities captive in a state they don’t wish to remain in?

Eastern Oregon, excluding Bend, is a huge drain on the state budget. The average northwestern Oregon wage earner, including Bend, subsidizes eastern and southern Oregon counties by $690 annually, according to a thorough independent economic analysis funded by the Claremont Institute.

Do you enjoy paying for that? Not many do — a 2022 SurveyUSA poll found that only 3% of northwestern Oregonian voters think that keeping these counties in Oregon is worth that cost.

Twelve counties of eastern Oregon have voted in favor of considering making eastern Oregon a part of Idaho.

Why should western Oregon’s taxes, including Bend’s, go to counties who don’t appreciate it, who vote against Oregon taxes and programs, and who do not consent to Oregon’s government? Letting eastern Oregon counties get their state governance from Idaho would allow those tax dollars to be used for the rest of Oregon.

Currently, eastern Oregon voters weigh in on statewide ballot measures and our state legislators cause gridlock in the Oregon Legislature. In the area proposed to join Idaho, which excludes Sisters, Sunriver, and Bend, but not Redmond or La Pine, 75% of voters voted for a Republican for Congress last November. An eastern Oregon judge is preventing a gun control law from being implemented.

When parents see their son reach adulthood, they relinquish control over him. Eastern Oregon is asking for the same freedom. Like parents, western Oregon will be relieved of the burden and the lifestyle conflict if they let eastern Oregon be free to move out. Oregon’s “son” would thrive as a part of Idaho.

Portland metro incomes are so high that any middle-income county that departs the Oregon state budget increases the average income of both Oregon and Idaho.

The Claremont Institute analysis found that eastern and southern Oregon’s economy would improve, and be a net benefit to Idaho’s state budget.

Idaho is a red state that respects the value of faith, family and rural jobs. If the state line is relocated, then western Oregon conservatives could move to Idaho and still be within driving distance of friends and family. Your communities and our communities don’t need to share a state government. Let’s live and let live. You would still be welcome to visit!

Legally, Oregon has the right, but morally, what right does western Oregon have to hold onto eastern Oregon without its consent? Oregon is not a natural unit of territory. It’s an artificial political unit created by men who had never visited the area. Congress probably put the border out east because there weren’t enough people west of the Cascades to make a self-governing territory in 1852. At that time, they had no way of knowing what kind of people would eventually inhabit the two sides of the Cascades.

Now, the state line can be moved to a location that serves the interests of the people, by locating it along the actual dividing line between areas that prefer Salem’s rule and eastern Oregonians who prefer Boise’s.

State lines have been relocated dozens of times in U.S. history, although never more than a single county at a time. But Oregon is known for pioneering new trends in state law. Are Oregonians open-minded enough to embrace a win-win solution of this mammoth scale?

The Idaho House of Representatives passed a bill in February that invites Oregon to begin talks with Idaho about the possibility of moving the Oregon-Idaho state line.

A similar bill in the Oregon Legislature, SJM 2, has not even been awarded a hearing to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the idea. Yet in the poll mentioned above, 68% of northwestern Oregon voters said that Oregon should look into the idea. We are calling on Oregonians to contact their state legislators about this.