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Petitioners For Oregon Secession Act Withdraw, But #CalExit Organizers Say The Vote Is Set for 2019

By Dawn Papple
Published on: 06:02 PST, Nov 12, 2016

As usual, the new election brought new dreams of secession from the United States. Just earlier this year, Texas lawmakers finally decided by a mere two votes, that they wouldn’t go through with their own secession plans after all. This time, the west coast reignited hopes of forming their own country away outside of the United States. Multiple states are discussing hopes of forming a separate country that supporters claim will place more value on equality.

Petitioners in Oregon filed for a vote to secede from the United states after Trump won the general election. They hoped to get the issue on the 2018 ballot, OPB reported. They stated that they were interested in leaving the United States to form either their own country or a new country that would include other states like California, Washington, Hawaii, Nevada, and Alaska. They even offered to make a whole new country with Canada’s British Columbia. Not long after the petition was filed, though, the petitioners withdrew the request, according to Oregon Live.

When petitioners in Oregon filed, they stated that “the People of Oregon prize life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights of a free people,” and claimed that other American States do not share those values as shown by their “electoral outcomes, laws, and public policies.” The Oregon secession petition says that the people of Oregon and the people of many other American States have irreconcilable differences and claims that the U.S. Congress no longer is capable of addressing the issues that matter to Oregon or of protecting the people of Oregon’s rights.

It’s not just issues of equality and personal liberty that the Oregon petitioners say are too problematic for them to stay in the Union. The petitioners also say that the federal government has been a poor steward and poor manager of public resources in their state.

“Whereas governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;”

“Whereas in the course of human events, it sometimes becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands that have connected them with another;”

“The People of Oregon therefore enact the following Oregon Secession Act:”

“Section 1 The Governor and Legislature shall actively pursue Oregon’s peaceful secession from the United State of America. They shall seek secession alone or in conjunction with other states and Canadian provinces that seek to form a new nation, including but not limited to California, Washington, Hawaii, Nevada, Alaska and British Columbia.”

“Section 2 Upon securing a secession date, the Governor and Legislature shall support convening a Constitutional Convention with any other states or provinces that might have joined Oregon in secession.”

The petition asks for a vote of the people to secede from the United States and for a new constitution to be formed for the members of the new country. They ask that the number of delegated at the Constitutional Convention be proportional to the population of each state, for the new constitution to be grounded in democratic principles and for their new constitution to preserve the life, liberty, equality, and pursuit of happiness of the people.

Their constitution would “require nonpartisan elections and forbid privileged ballot or electoral access based on affiliation with a private organization or political party.”

When Texas’ attempts to secede failed, Washington Post reported that it fell just two votes short in a lower committee before it would have gone on to the Texas GOP convention. That article received thousands of comments and most of them were along the lines of “let them go!” A couple of comments even accused those that wanted to secede of being guilty of treason and fit for a hanging.

The petitioners who requested the Oregon secession bill claim that they ended up withdrawing their petition, because of threats and vulgar messages.

The organizers of Yes California, a California secession group are considering asking states to the north of it to join with them, but for now, the most recent petition to get the issue on the ballot has been taken off the table in Oregon.

When Texas asked President Obama for permission to secede, he said no. Some people are hoping that a President Trump would approve of the liberal states’ decision to secede if their petitions and ballot measures eventually go through.

[Featured Image by David Mark/Pixabay/Cropped and resized/CC0 Public Domain]

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