A map from the Greater Idaho website shows 11 Oregon counties that have voted to consider joining Idaho. Wallowa County is next up to hold such a vote.

ENTERPRISE — Wallowa County voters will once again get the chance to decide whether they want the county commissioners to investigate making the county part of Idaho.

Organizers of the Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho movement gathered enough signatures from registered voters and submitted them to county Clerk Sandy Lathrop on Wednesday, Jan. 11, to put a measure on the May ballot that requires the commissioners to “discuss the interest (of Wallowa County) in relocation of the state borders.”

The petition was submitted with 338 signatures — more than the 186 needed, Lathrop said.

She said 327 of those signatures were deemed valid, as 10 were rejected because the signatories were not voters registered in Wallowa County and one was a duplicate.

In November 2020, a similar measure narrowly failed at the Wallowa County polls, being defeated with 2,478 “yes” votes to 2,519 “no” votes.

In 2020, the commissioners agreed they would comply with the voters’ wishes and consider the county’s best interests in any potential border shift.

Progress to date

The movement said that so far, 11 rural Eastern Oregon counties have approved language similar to that Wallowa County voters will consider. The movement proposes to move the border to add 15 conservative, rural counties to Idaho by convincing the state legislatures of Oregon and Idaho to move their common state line, a Jan. 11 press release from the Greater Idaho movement said.

“Eastern Oregon is mostly ranchland, and Portland is not,” said Matt McCaw, the movement’s spokesman. “It doesn’t make sense for these two cultures to be dictating policy to each other. Portland voters forced a gun-control measure on the whole state, although Eastern Oregon voters almost defeated it. And then an Eastern Oregon judge blocked it. His injunction might stand for a couple years while he decides the case. If Oregon had let Grant and Harney counties go when they requested to join Idaho, then their judge wouldn’t have blocked an Oregon measure.”

In Salem and Boise

McCaw called on the new president of the Oregon Senate, Rob Wagner, to allow a hearing on a related measure in January during the legislative session. The bill, Senate Joint Memorial 2, invites Idaho to begin talks with Oregon on the potential of moving the border.

A spokeswoman for Wagner said Thursday that the bill must first be assigned to a committee. Then the committee chairman would decide if the measure gets a hearing.

Idaho lawmakers already have heard a pitch to move the border and, though many viewed its possibility with skepticism, appeared intrigued by the idea.

In April 2021, Greater Idaho representatives addressed a joint meeting of Idaho House and Senate members on the issue.

“There’s a longtime cultural divide as big as the Grand Canyon between Northwest Oregon and rural Oregon, and it’s getting larger,” Mike McCarter, Greater Idaho president, told the Idaho lawmakers.

“Values of faith, family, independence. That’s what we’re about,” said Mark Simmons, an Eastern Oregon rancher and former speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. “We don’t need the state breathing down our necks all the time, micromanaging our lives and trying to push us into a foreign way of living.”

A story published April 12, 2021 in the Idaho Falls Post Register, said that Idaho Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, was the driving force in making the meeting between lawmakers possible. Ehardt is the chairwoman of the Environment, Energy and Technology Committee. She also gives credit to Idaho Sen. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, her Senate counterpart who serves as chairman of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee, for helping set up the event.

“Why not have the conversation? It’s an intriguing idea. There absolutely are benefits to the idea. It’s not necessarily something that would happen right away. Oregon, and I dare say Washington and even California, is pushing forward to try to make this happen and get the support for this move. And as Idahoans, I think we should do our part to at least have the conversation,” Ehardt said.

“The boundary between Oregon and Idaho is outdated because it doesn’t match the cultural boundary between urban communities who like Portland’s leadership and rural communities that are traditional, family-oriented, self-reliant,” McCarter’s presentation stated.

McCarter said it wouldn’t just be conservative Oregonians who should want this border change to happen; there would be benefits for Idahoans too. These benefits include more state tax money, access to the International Port of Coos Bay, new industries and the chance to “alleviate future overcrowding” in Idaho. It would also put the border of Oregon and its more liberal laws further from the population of Boise.

“Northwestern Oregonians voted to decriminalize hard drugs statewide. It’s time to push the Oregon border five hours away, not 51 minutes away from Boise,” McCarter’s presentation stated.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little didn’t dismiss the idea when asked about it on the show “Fox & Friends” in February 2020.

“I understand they’re looking at Idaho fondly because of our regulatory atmosphere, our values,” Little said. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

Little said there would be “governmental hurdles” and “legal hurdles” before the idea could come to fruition.

If both state legislatures were to approve moving the border, it also would require the assent of Congress.