Crook County To Vote in May

The Crook County Clerk yesterday released the final ballot title of a non-binding question about the Greater Idaho proposal that will appear on the county’s May 2024 ballot.

Measure 7-86 asks: “Should Crook County represent that its citizens support efforts to move the Idaho state border to include Crook County?”  The ballot summary states: “The Crook County Court has placed this advisory question on the ballot to determine voter attitudes of whether your Crook County elected officials should inform state and federal officials that the people of Crook County support continued negotiations regarding a potential relocation of the Oregon-Idaho border to include Crook County.”

The Greater Idaho issue has a perfect record in the twelve counties of eastern Oregon that have voted on the issue so far. The question that will be posed to Crook County voters is similar to questions approved by Wheeler County and Sherman County voters in 2022 and 2021.

Crook County is expected to vote in favor. Although moving a state line is not, strictly speaking, a partisan issue, in 2022 Crook County only voted 16% in favor of the current governor of Oregon, and 74% in favor of the governing party of Idaho. These numbers are average for eastern Oregon counties.

Although the Idaho House of Representatives passed a resolution one year ago inviting the Oregon Legislature to begin talks on relocating the state line, and Oregon GOP lawmakers have responded, Oregon Democrats have ignored the invitation.  Neither the Governor of Oregon nor the President of the Oregon Senate has agreed to speak with leaders of the movement.

The Greater Idaho movement believes that state leaders should want to let eastern Oregon join Idaho because it would benefit Oregon’s state budget, and because eastern Oregon voters seem intent on continuing to elect state lawmakers who will block votes in the Oregon Legislature, according to their website greateridaho.org.