Morrison

The Greater Idaho movement presents changing Oregon’s border as an easy fix. Eastern Oregon’s discontented conservatives can live in a conservative paradise. Liberals will have an even more liberal state.

Idaho will enjoy an expanded tax base, even if it consists of poorer, rural counties that generally use more tax dollars than they generate. Klamath, Wasco, Jefferson and Deschutes counties will willingly divide themselves to be in different states as Greater Idaho thinks best.

We’ll just redraw county lines so that water sources are in the state where people want them. And we won’t mind the minimum wage decrease from $12.50 to $7.25, because “Idaho has fewer pages of regulations than any other state.”

West Virginia was the last state to change borders for political reasons, when it left the Confederacy in 1863. The kind of modern-day border change Greater Idaho proposes is unprecedented — there is no roadmap for negotiating the issues a border change would involve.

When we leave, the assets of Eastern Oregon cannot just be considered ours. Throughout our state’s history, our state government has contributed untold amounts of money to our region — to build and maintain roads, universities and prisons; to purchase parks and recreation areas; to fund our rural hospitals and school districts; and to train our police officers, our county planners, our court administrators and our child protection workers.

But all state residents contribute to expenses in all counties, so Oregon can’t just give away parts of the state that are the birthright of all Oregonians. We would need to plan on compensating the state for everything we take with us when we go.

Maybe Eastern Oregon’s state-owned lands could be transferred to Idaho for a price. But what about equipment and supplies? Will they be taken to the west side, requiring Idaho to purchase replacements? Or can Oregon sell them to Idaho?

Maybe Idaho can negotiate a purchase price that is discounted by the relative percentage of taxes that our counties have paid to the state over the years.

How far back should we consider tax contributions? To statehood?

Once everyone has agreed to the terms of sale, we will need to appraise every piece of state-owned property to determine how much Oregon should be paid for the property it surrenders. But as the people pushing for the border change, shouldn’t we expect to pay the cost of appraising the billions of dollars of property involved?

In any case, anyone who disputes the agreed-to sale terms, or appraisal values, or responsibility for paying the cost of preparing for our border change can seek a resolution in court.

But in which state?

The state of Idaho may not have been saving back money to cover the unexpected opportunity to purchase Eastern Oregon. Maybe Idaho will raise taxes to cover the cost of buying our counties. But then as new Idahoans, would we have to pay increased Idaho taxes to cover the cost of purchasing property that presently belongs to us as Oregonians?

Greater Idaho has an attractive suggestion: Eastern Oregon counties could just raise taxes “to pay Idaho for the privilege of joining the state.”

There are other unresolved issues.

Will Oregon state employees automatically become Idaho employees? Or will all those people be looking for new jobs?

Will Oregon’s licensed workers — doctors, lawyers, teachers, pharmacists, hairdressers or taxidermists — automatically be licensed to work in our new state of Idaho? If we must be relicensed to continue working, who pays the millions of dollars for relicensure?

Who pays the millions of dollars for retitling all of our vehicles?

For that matter, who pays for rewriting all of Eastern Oregon’s land deeds to reflect that we have become part of Idaho?

Corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon have built facilities in Eastern Oregon, perhaps because they like Oregon’s political climate. What will it cost us if they join forces and litigate to keep the borders as they are?

It will take years to sort through these issues, and we will be paying to litigate the results for decades. Ultimately, moving the border may generate issues that will need to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. But will that court approve of a border change that would encourage unhappy citizens everywhere to secede from their own states?

At least the lawyers and accountants will help us work through these grinding details. And they will surely also aid us through the endless litigation that follows. But they will charge us.

Will our counties be alone in paying the cost of becoming Idahoans?

And who can we trust to answer these questions?