Colorado County to vote on Secession
Source: Washington Post
Residents in a conservative northern Colorado county will vote this November on whether to secede and create a new state, after a local commission on Monday approved ballot language backed by tea party activists.
The Weld County Commission unanimously approved the resolution’s language, which reads: “Shall the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County, in concert with the county commissioners of other Colorado counties, pursue becoming the 51st state of the United States of America?”
Weld County is one of ten rural counties where activists have held meetings about seceding from Colorado. The activists started pushing for the meetings after this year’s legislative session, when Democrats who control the Colorado legislature passed new laws regulating firearms and oil exploration. The new measures, conservatives believe, are the latest steps taken by an overbearing legislature that’s Denver-centric, to the exclusion of the state’s rural areas.
The legislature also passed legislation legalizing same-sex civil unions this year, on a party-line vote.
Several county commissions have held public meetings on the topic since activists started bringing up the idea; the Weld County commission held four meetings before their vote on Monday.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/08/19/colorado-county-to-vote-on-secession/
This reminds me of what some people tried back in the late 50's. In Southern Oregon and Upper Northern Calif., an attempt was made to try and create "The State of Jefferson".
Not sure if they were as loony then as they are now. What do they plan to call it? Perhaps we should send them some suggestions.
Found out about Colorado on Tweety's show tonight, but learned about "State of Jefferson" when I lived in Medford Oregon many years ago.
Can't wait for the rapture or some friggin space aliens to take these mental midgets away somewhere. And I hope they don't forget Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan either.
We really could use a break.
Apologies if this is a repost.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...over the 2012 December Holidays. We were stopped for about 2 hours because of snow conditions going over Siskiyou Pass. Finally moving, we thought we'd be able to make it to Redding about 7:00 pm where we had a motel reservation...until we hit the first Interstate exit in Yreka, where the highway patrolman waved us, and a couple hundred other cars, into town because the freeway was closed all the way to Redding.
The next morning, having spent the night in the what was probably the last dog friendly cheap motel room in Yreka we passed this (though it was waist deep in snow when we saw it):
Yes, that is a fetus.
Resister in the Rockies
"We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!" ~ William Jennings Bryan, 1896
http://co-ironwill.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-51st-state-initiative-blog.html
Their viewpoint:
Another viewpoint:
Colorado Counties Want To Form 51st State To Avoid Environmental Protections
By Nicole Flatow on July 11, 2013
At least ten rural Colorado counties are taking aggressive steps to form a 51st state, saying their interests are not being met by moves to regulate the oil and gas industry, increase renewable energy, and better regulate guns. Organizers in Kansas and Nebraska are also interested in joining the state they call “North Colorado.”
Organizers met this week to draw up boundaries of the new state, as part of an ambitious schedule to draft a ballot initiative by August 1, and get a proposal before the voters in November. Congress must approve admission of a new state into the Union. But the U.S. Constitution also requires that secession of parts of any existing state be approved both by the voters and legislature of that state. This means Colorado would have to approve of the counties’ secession, as would Kansas and Nebraska if parts of those states wanted to join. One of the ten counties that initiated the movement, Weld County, is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island, according to a county commissioner.
One of the laws that movement representatives say “broke the camel’s back” requires rural energy cooperatives to get 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. The current goal is ten percent. While Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed the bill into law, he also signed an executive order committing to make an independent assessment of whether the 20 percent requirement is feasible, and to revisit the legislation next session if need be. The organizers also cite several failed bills to regulate the oil and gas industry that would have increased fines for violations of state law, and imposed other measures to address the fast-increasing number of both wells and oil spills and contaminations in Colorado over the last several years.
Proponents of the movement say the legislature is not recognizing its “main economic drivers, agriculture and energy.” But these energy-heavy rural counties are also particularly vulnerable to environmental degradation, which is why some residents have voiced strong opposition to the movement. “I don’t want be in a 51st state,” Washington County resident Steve Frey told the local CBS affiliate. “I don’t want any part of their fracking that they’re doing in Weld County...”
More at link:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/11/2288901/colorado-counties-want-to-form-51st-state-to-avoid-environmental-protections/
I think the Koch brothers are behind this. They have been reported to have their own military forces in Colorado. Saw it on DU. Gotta go.
No people, no tax base...the 51st state would subsist entirely on handouts from the Federal Government.
Effin' moochers!
And yes, the thought that they deserve 2 Senators of their very own....
ETA: if they think they will derive any income from fracking they are even more delusional. Energy companies have ways to avoid royalties.
