A movement called Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho announced today that they have collected
enough signatures to put their ballot initiative on the November 2020 ballot in Wallowa County, Oregon.
The movement wants to move the Oregon/Idaho border to make rural Oregon counties a part of Idaho.
The campaign will continue collecting signatures in case an unusually large number of signatures are
determined to be invalid.
Mike McCarter said, “Wallowa County is unique because people were willing to put a lot of time into
building a team who were willing to go out despite the lockdown and the coronavirus. In Jefferson, Union,
and Douglas Counties, we’ve surpassed half our goal, but we don’t know if we will reach our goal, which
is the required number plus 30% extra to account for invalid signatures. Other counties are farther behind,
so we will need a federal injunction to get on the ballot in most of those counties. This lockdown has hurt
our ability to collect signatures.”
He continued, “A special case is Sherman County, which only requires 60 signatures. We hope some
volunteer will knock that one out. I encourage everyone to download a petition from
www.GreaterIdaho.org and collect signatures even in the counties that have fallen behind schedule,
because there is a good chance that the required number will be reduced drastically, and the deadline
delayed. Approval to circulate a petition in Malheur County was only awarded two weeks ago, but we
expect to have 40% of the requirement in hand by the end of today.”
Move Oregon’s Border filed a federal lawsuit on June 30, and was assigned a judge who, in another case
for another organization, required the state to reduce signature requirements and delay the deadline.
U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane’s response to Move Oregon’s Border’s request for an injunction is
expected soon.
The state says there are two statewide initiatives on the ballot so far, out of 72 that tried, but those
gathered their signatures before the pandemic. No statewide initiative has managed to gather the
necessary signatures during this pandemic.
McCarter said, “We don’t have the corporate money necessary to send mass mailings of petitions to
citizens. This is a grass-roots effort. Exercising our ballot initiative rights should not be dependent on
getting financial backing from corporations. Everyone in our movement is unpaid. If we get 10% of the
required signatures during this pandemic, that should count as much as 100% during normal times
because potential volunteers are reluctant to leave their homes for non-essential purposes, especially
when the signature requirement seems out of reach. We’ve got volunteers in every single county that has
our petition. We would have filed this suit earlier, but we were hoping the lock down wouldn’t last this
long.”
“The ordinances we are trying to get on the books will enlist county governments in working toward
moving the Oregon/Idaho border so that we don’t have to suffer under blue-state law. The risk to our
movement is that we will fail to get a wide variety of counties on the ballot this November. To keep our
momentum for making a dramatic change like moving a state border, we need a high-turnout election to
lend weight to the results of that election. That kind of turn out only happens every four years.”
“We want to move the border because the political atmosphere in Oregon is getting too intense. We’ve
seen political violence in Portland and Eugene this year and it could get worse. Instead of fighting, Oregon
could let citizens in each region of the state choose which state’s governance is more suitable to them. I
believe eastern and southern Oregon will agree that Idaho’s governance is better suited to rural counties
than Oregon’s is. Combining all taxes together, the average Idahoan paid $1753 less in taxes per year than
the average Oregonian in 2018.”
Mike McCarter,
Leader, Move Oregon’s Border For a Greater Idaho movement
President, Move Oregon’s Border 501(c)(4), P.O. Box 1294, La Pine, Oregon, 97739
Plaintiff, McCarter v. Brown, et. al. 6:20-cv-01048
List of locations where petitions may be picked up:
www.facebook.com/groups/GreaterIdaho/permalink/568593160471945
Press: for hi-res images of signatures being collected in Josephine County, the rally in Douglas County, or
the maps, email CascadeCarry@Outlook.com
For earlier press releases, visit www.GreaterIdaho.org
Please read our FAQ here: www.greateridaho.org/the_downloads/2020/main/FAQ.pdf
Read our main document here:
www.greateridaho.org/the_downloads/2019/main/Greater_Idaho_Proposal.pdf
The main Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/GreaterIdaho
For info on asking your county commissioner to put greater Idaho on the ballot, visit:
www.facebook.com/GreaterIdaho/photos/a.112830530234555/157009962483278
Context of this press release:
Press release regarding federal court case:
http://www.greateridaho.org/the_downloads/2020/20200713_Press_Release.pdf
Initial filing in federal court case:
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ord.153158/gov.uscourts.ord.153158.1.0.pdf
Statewide initiatives rare: https://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/state/pandemic-leads-tounusually-short-list-of-ballot-measures/article_ae820da8-bd6f-11ea-87a2-5f833065356c.html
Another organization: https://www.opb.org/news/article/redistricting-oregon-measure-ballot-2020/