North Colorado: 51st state

[Songbird]

Read something on this months ago but it's for real now that the NYT hit the scene:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/us/fed-up-on-the-prairie-and-voting-on-seceding-from-colorado.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=US_FUO_20131007&_r=0

 

[poindexter]

Western Maryland is on it:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-09-18/news/bs-ed-schaller-secession-20130918_1_secession-democrats-tea

 

[LongTimeListener]

51st? Pshaw. The State of Jefferson, on the California-Oregon border, is just about printing flags.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/06/5795950/northern-exposure-state-of-jefferson.html

 

[I Should Coco]

And let's not forget Michigan's U.P. .... er, the state of Superior:

http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/news/story.aspx?id=748688#.UlMQ6Rz3K4g

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Key West scoffs at all of them.

 

[Football_Bat]

Their star-spangled Union Jack flutters so proud.

 

[Mark2010]

Eastern Washington and Oregon have nothing in common with their brethren west of the Cascades.

 

[MileHigh]

It's not going to happen, obviously. If for nothing else, they need the water. It's just a protest over everything going on. Haven't read the NYT piece, but does it mention a county in northwest Colorado wanting out and to go to Wyoming.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Western Maryland is on it:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-09-18/news/bs-ed-schaller-secession-20130918_1_secession-democrats-tea

From a strictly geographic standpoint I've always wondered how the eastern part of Maryland & the little sliver of peninsular Virginia didn't wind up as part of Delaware when the early states were carved out.

 

[old_tony]

Wouldn't that be "58th" state? We already have 57.

 

[Morris816]

As MileHigh said, it won't happen. There's simply no way for these counties to survive on their own as a state and they know it. They don't have a tax base to stand on their own and would find themselves immediately depending on the federal government to support them for everything and anything.

I seriously doubt Moffat County will be allowed to be annexed into Wyoming, either. Colorado's state legislature would reject it and there's no guarantee Wyoming's state legislature would allow it to happen.

The only objection of which I sympathize with the rural counties is how their schools get pushed to the side. It's typical of how it works in many states, with urban schools getting the money and rural schools getting shortchanged. With that said, watch what happens when they try to support rural schools on their tax base alone.

 

[MileHigh]

As MileHigh said, it won't happen. There's simply no way for these counties to survive on their own as a state and they know it. They don't have a tax base to stand on their own and would find themselves immediately depending on the federal government to support them for everything and anything.

I seriously doubt Moffat County will be allowed to be annexed into Wyoming, either. Colorado's state legislature would reject it and there's no guarantee Wyoming's state legislature would allow it to happen.

The only objection of which I sympathize with the rural counties is how their schools get pushed to the side. It's typical of how it works in many states, with urban schools getting the money and rural schools getting shortchanged. With that said, watch what happens when they try to support rural schools on their tax base alone.

Well, it *could* work with lots of oil and gas drilling. It has the lowest unemployment in the state as it is. Sort of a mini-North Dakota.

The problem comes in the vast amounts of farming in the counties. And what do you need to farm? Water. Lots of it. And where's that water going to come from? The mountains in the Rockies ... in Colorado.

 

[MileHigh]

Western Maryland is on it:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-09-18/news/bs-ed-schaller-secession-20130918_1_secession-democrats-tea

From a strictly geographic standpoint I've always wondered how the eastern part of Maryland & the little sliver of peninsular Virginia didn't wind up as part of Delaware when the early states were carved out.

Like everything else -- by charter (and religion).

Pulled out "How the States Got Their Shapes" book:

England stipulated the borders of Delaware in an 1682 deed from King Charles II to his brother, the future King James II. Charles defined Delaware's northern border as a 12-mile radius surrounding the Dutch settlement at New Castle. The rest of Delaware, he stated, comprised the land south of that circle as far as Cape Henlopen.

Maryland lodged a protest. In response, the King's Board of Trade and Foreign Plantations ruled in 1685 that the charter creating Maryland was intended to include only land uninhabited by Christians at the time the charter was issued. The board then south to clarify the border, but the boundaries turned out to be anything but clear.

From the ruling: The tract of land lying between the River and Bay of Delaware and the Eastern Sea on the one side and Chesapeake Bay on the other, be divided into two equal parts by a line from the latitude of Cape Henlopen to the 40th degree of northern latitude.

But then it was discovered the point where the Delaware River crosses 40 degrees north is the Philadelphia docks. Then it was discovered that a line bisecting the land between the east coast and the Chesapeake from the latitude of Cape Henlopen to the 40th slices through the 12-mile radius around New Castle.

Delaware's western border was adjusted to be tangent to its 12-mile radius. But this line resulted in a sizable wedge among the neighboring borders and this pocket of uncertain jurisdiction invited all sorts of individuals engaged in behaviors that jurisdictions tend to "jurisdict."

To eliminate this problem, the cneter point of the arc was relocated in 1750 from the steeple of the old Dutch church to the courthouse and the smaller "wedge" that resulted was given to Delaware. This adjustment accounts for the fact that Delaware's northwestern border appears as if it just missed the state's northern arc.

 

[Pilot]

The good people of Moffat County are well aware this has zero chance of happening. They acknowledge as much every time they talk about it. They're just looking for attention, kind of like when they considered passing a law a few months ago that would have required every head of household in the county own a gun. (There were enough loopholes to effectively allow anyone to legally not have a gun, but they figured if they passed something so stupid they'd get national attention and their voice would be heard. I know they're not the first to try to pass a similar law.)

 

[MTM]

South California will be 51st state

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/11/local/la-me-south-california-20110711

 

[Mark2010]

How many states will actually be left when the new Confederate States of America decide to leave? My guess is about 30.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

Wasn't there once a movement for Long Island to become its own state?

 

[Jake_Taylor]

How many states will actually be left when the new Confederate States of America decide to leave? My guess is about 30.

Depends. Are we counting Frozen Hell and the one with flying pigs for a state mammal?

 

[DanOregon]

It all goes back to the Brady Bunch.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I wholeheartedly endorse any plan in which Maryland is cut loose.