OREIDACAL? Idaho merger idea gains attention

Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s appearance Wednesday on Fox News was not the most unusual network sighting that day.

While he has been on the cable network from time to time, he is by no means a regular. In a Fox and Friends segment, the first-term governor appeared and — armed with his million-dollar smile and down-home appeal — spoke about Oregon using words of familiar values that anyone involved in Idaho politics would immediately recognize.

“I understand what takes place in the Portland area has a big impact on those rural parts of Oregon,” Little explained. “I understand they’re looking at Idaho fondly, because of our regulatory atmosphere [and] our values. That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

Ten seconds into the 3-minute piece, before the governor spoke about Idaho’s commitment to a restriction-free lifestyle, Kilmeade cut to a map of what kind of looks like Idaho, is labeled as Idaho but is decidedly different than Idaho.

The map showed the normal eastern, southern and northwestern boundaries that define what we all know to be Idaho. But that same map then took ambitious westerly liberties, swallowing three-quarters of Oregon and a fragment of northern California.

The hypothetical proposal essentially secedes those Oregon and California counties and moves them into Idaho, more than doubling the Gem State’s land mass.

“I saw the map from a news piece on it,” Little said. “It didn’t surprise me because I know a lot of people over there that want to be [here]. There’s a lot of hurdles — governmental hurdles and legal hurdles — that have to be jumped before they could ever do that.”

The proposal — which has made national news in recent days from CNN to the Washington Post to Fox and Friends — is driven by conservative activists in two Oregon counties who say they’ve grown tired of a left-leaning political landscape, where the state’s governor, both U.S. senators and almost all its House members are Democrats.

The new map would leave liberal metropolises like Portland and Eugene back in the northwest corner that would become the new Oregon, all while incorporating three quarters of today’s Oregon into a new Idaho — one its proponents call “Greater Idaho.”

“Rural counties have become increasingly outraged by laws coming out of the Oregon Legislature that threaten our livelihoods, our industries, our wallet, our gun rights, and our values,” Mike McCarter, Oregon activist and champion of “Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho” campaign, said in a statement. “We tried voting those legislators out, but rural Oregon is outnumbered and our voices are ignored. This is our last resort.”

Eastern Oregonians thumbing through the Idaho Fish and Game guide right now for a more thorough understanding of our muzzleloader season might want to pump their brakes. For this secession to happen, a number of extraordinary events would have to occur in a very specific order.

All the county governments involved — 18 in Oregon, not to mention six counties in northern California — would have to give the go-ahead for the secession group to open an official dialogue with its future-former state Legislature. The 18 for-the-moment-Oregon counties would then have to gather signatures from 6 percent of each county’s population to get the matter on the ballot. (Not for nothing, but, depending on the geography of a dissenting county, one county’s “Thanks, but no thanks” could kill the whole idea in its tracks.)

But let’s say all 18 Oregon counties make it up to this point. The referendum would have to be approved on the November ballot. Assuming it passed, the Oregon Legislature — a body controlled by Democrats — would have to approve it, as would Idaho.

Once organizers clear that hurdle, the matter would then come before Congress.

So far, Greater Idaho organizers are doing just that: organizing. Of the 18 counties that have been approached for permission to officially discuss the matter with Salem, only three had given their blessings as of Wednesday evening.

But just because Greater Idaho is still an overwhelming hypothetical doesn’t mean we can’t indulge. Assuming all the stars align, let’s look at how the move would change the dynamic of Idaho:

Enjoy that bowl of Wheaties every day for the rest of your life! Idaho would leapfrog Oklahoma and Washington to become America’s fourth-largest wheat producer, changing us from The Gem State to The Wheat State.

Hunters, rejoice! Idaho’s elk population would climb by nearly 80 percent, depending on what yearly count you rely on. Already the most densely populated elk lands in the nation, doubling Idaho with an almost equally abundant range would all-but-solidify us as an elk hunter’s heaven.

Hunters, wear your hunter orange! Part of what makes Idaho elk hunting so spectacular is its elk hunters-to-elk ratio. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates that roughly half of its 101,000 tag-bearing elk hunters live in the area that would merge into Greater Idaho, making The Wheat State the most competitive hunting grounds in America.

Pot enthusiasts, temporarily rejoice! If approved tomorrow, Idaho would absorb 32 Oregon dispensaries, six California dispensaries and become the eighth-largest grow-operating state in the nation, despite the fact that a bill legalizing industrial hemp has not yet passed the Old Idaho Senate.

Idahoans, proclaim yourselves proudly as … Ore … Cali … hoans? Endless Idaho name changes have been floated since McCarter’s group first introduced the idea of secession. Greater Idaho has been the name that has stuck so far, though pundits and hopefuls have pushed everything from New Idaho to Oreho to Idagon to Caligon.

Little told Kilmeade before a national audience, however, that there’s only one acceptable name.

“No matter what happens, we’ll maintain our name,” the governor declared, “which is probably what [conservative Oregonians are] interested in. They’d like to have a little more autonomy, a little more control and a little more freedom, and I fully understand that.”