Greater Idaho movement sets sights on absorbing new county south of Tri-Cities

Voters in Morrow County just south of the Tri-Cities will get to vote in its November election on whether to leave Oregon behind.

Supporters of the Great Idaho movement announced Monday they have collected enough signatures to put the measure before voters in the Eastern Oregon county.

County Clerk Bobbi Childers confirmed the organization turned in 287 signatures asking for a vote that would force county commissioners to consider “how to promote the interests of Morrow County in any negotiations regarding relocations of state borders,” according to a release from the Greater Idaho movement.

The movement’s leader, Mike McCarter, is hoping to use the votes to convince the Oregon state Legislature that voters favor the Greater Idaho movement.

The county has about 12,000 residents and has voted Republican in presidential contests for more than a decade. But the more populated western counties vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.

“Our representatives would be heard in the Idaho Legislature because they would be part of the majority party there,” McCarter said in a news release.

The organization is looking to move Idaho’s border to include all of the Oregon counties east of the Cascade Mountains.

The proposed map would mean Idaho would absorb 14 Oregon counties and partially absorb three other counties.

According to Greater Idaho, that would mean about 360,000 people — 9% of Oregon’s population — and 63% of Oregon’s land would move.

So far, voters in nine of Oregon’s 15 counties on the Eastern side of the state have voted in favor of changing states.

Morrow and Wallowa counties are the next to vote on it.

Umatilla County has not voted on the proposal, according to Greater Idaho’s website.

The movement began in February 2020 and is looking to let those Republican-leanings counties to move into a state where the leaders have more in common with them.

Movement leaders are looking for the Oregon legislators to start hearings on dividing the state and for a resolution that would invite Idaho to start talks with Oregon on moving the border.

Initial plans for Greater Idaho would have expanded the border across the mountains into southwestern Oregon, but residents in Douglas and Josephine counties rejected measures in the May 17 primary.

Greater Idaho leaders are also eyeing northern California as well.

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Greater Idaho movement sets sights on absorbing new county south of Tri-Cities."