Northeast Colorado counties begin effort to secede and become 'North Colorado'

[DINGO Joe]

Woo!  The referendum won in 5 counties with a combined population of about 30,000 people.  I say kick em out and take away their farm subsidies while your at it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Woo!  The referendum won in 5 counties with a combined population of about 30,000 people.  I say kick em out and take away their farm subsidies while your at it.

The State of Colorado provides farm subsidies?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm opposed to the US having territories of any kind. We need to follow the precedent of European countries in either cutting their imperial possessions loose altogether or fully integrating them into the mother country, as France did with French Guiana and the Netherlands has done with its Caribbean exclaves.

So long as the Senate has real power, then resolving it will be difficult.  None of those territories save Puerto Rico is large and even in the House they would be overrepresented.  As soon as Puerto Rico decides it wants a change in its status, it'll get it.  As for the others, shall we kick them out even if they'd prefer to remain a territory?

[Hatman 🍁]

Threshold for a state should be 100,000 (or maybe 500,000), but any secessionist movement that meets that criteria should be immediately given statehood if the people support it. State boundaries are arbitrary, the will of the people less so.

[Brittain33]

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From what I can find, counties voting yes:

Yuma, Washington, Phillips, Sedgwick, Cheyenne, and Kit Carson.

Counties voting no:

Weld, Logan, Lincoln, and Moffatt

I don't think this is complete, but at least they form a continuous bloc, which is nice.

Perhaps we could agree to their secession and statehood if D.C. is divided up into a number of new states on a 1:1 population parity basis with "New Colorado" and all are admitted simultaneously.

[DINGO Joe]

Threshold for a state should be 100,000 (or maybe 500,000), but any secessionist movement that meets that criteria should be immediately given statehood if the people support it. State boundaries are arbitrary, the will of the people less so.

100,000?  Where do you live? 

Personally, I don't think Wyoming should be a state, and two Dakotas was the biggest scam of all time.

[DINGO Joe]

Woo!  The referendum won in 5 counties with a combined population of about 30,000 people.  I say kick em out and take away their farm subsidies while your at it.

The State of Colorado provides farm subsidies?

I don't even know, does Guam and the Samoas get farm subsidies?

[jimrtex]

Threshold for a state should be 100,000 (or maybe 500,000), but any secessionist movement that meets that criteria should be immediately given statehood if the people support it. State boundaries are arbitrary, the will of the people less so.

100,000?  Where do you live? 

Personally, I don't think Wyoming should be a state, and two Dakotas was the biggest scam of all time.

Microstates with less than 1/2 the average population and 1/2 the average area should be dissolved.

[minionofmidas]

If those counties were to become a separate state in their own right, they would almost certainly become net-recipients of federal funding since their own tax base couldn't support the fixed costs of running a state.

If they want to secede, they should be required to prove to Congress that they can pay for a minimum level of state services without federal help before they can be allowed to join the Union as a 51st state.

Either way, it sets a very bad precedent and if it works it could touch off a land rush of sorts for every state's various interest groups to try to carve off portions of their states for themselves.

How about letting them secede, then not admitting them as a state? The Territory of North Colorado? How's it sound?

Then they would be represented by one non-voting delegate in Congress just like all those little islands in the Pacific no one knows or cares about.

I'm opposed to the US having territories of any kind. We need to follow the precedent of European countries in either cutting their imperial possessions loose altogether or fully integrating them into the mother country, as France did with French Guiana and the Netherlands has done with its Caribbean exclaves.

While I'd be fully prepared to admit the sovereign Republic of North Colorado to the United Nations (eh... they seat Liechtenstein), I think the US Constitution bans that.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While I'd be fully prepared to admit the sovereign Republic of North Colorado to the United Nations (eh... they seat Liechtenstein), I think the US Constitution bans that.

No, it'd be possible.  Colorado and the United States would have to agree to the retrocession of North Colorado to territorial status and then the United States could give the territory independence without even a change to the Constitution.  Indeed, they wouldn't even have to give the North Coloradans a chance to stop the process.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

I'm opposed to the US having territories of any kind. We need to follow the precedent of European countries in either cutting their imperial possessions loose altogether or fully integrating them into the mother country, as France did with French Guiana and the Netherlands has done with its Caribbean exclaves.

So long as the Senate has real power, then resolving it will be difficult.  None of those territories save Puerto Rico is large and even in the House they would be overrepresented.  As soon as Puerto Rico decides it wants a change in its status, it'll get it.  As for the others, shall we kick them out even if they'd prefer to remain a territory?

Yes, we should. But why would they prefer to remain second-class non-citizens with no voting privileges or legislative representation instead of being full-fledged citizens of a major world power?

As for the Senate issue, we could admit all the tiny Pacific islands as one state and call it "American Polynesia" or something.

[Smid]

Threshold for a state should be 100,000 (or maybe 500,000), but any secessionist movement that meets that criteria should be immediately given statehood if the people support it. State boundaries are arbitrary, the will of the people less so.

Agree with you, except for setting this precise minimum population - I'd prefer to set it as a minimum population equal to the quota for the population of a Congressional District at the last Census.

[RedSLC]

I'm opposed to the US having territories of any kind. We need to follow the precedent of European countries in either cutting their imperial possessions loose altogether or fully integrating them into the mother country, as France did with French Guiana and the Netherlands has done with its Caribbean exclaves.

So long as the Senate has real power, then resolving it will be difficult.  None of those territories save Puerto Rico is large and even in the House they would be overrepresented.  As soon as Puerto Rico decides it wants a change in its status, it'll get it.  As for the others, shall we kick them out even if they'd prefer to remain a territory?

Yes, we should. But why would they prefer to remain second-class non-citizens with no voting privileges or legislative representation instead of being full-fledged citizens of a major world power?

As for the Senate issue, we could admit all the tiny Pacific islands as one state and call it "American Polynesia" or something.

Even if you combine the populations of Guam, The CNMI, and American Samoa (the three inhabited pacific territories), their combined population is still fewer than 300,000 people, so it probably wouldn't be that simple. The US Virgin Islands only have 100,000 inhabitants, but perhaps they could just be counted as part of Puerto Rico for federal representation.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes, we should. But why would they prefer to remain second-class non-citizens with no voting privileges or legislative representation instead of being full-fledged citizens of a major world power?

With the exception of American Samoa, they are full-fledged citizens, tho they need to move to a State to be able to vote for the national government.  The Samoans themselves (or at least their leaders) have resisted being made an organized territory or having their people be given automatic US citizenship. (They are all US nationals.)

[Hatman 🍁]

Threshold for a state should be 100,000 (or maybe 500,000), but any secessionist movement that meets that criteria should be immediately given statehood if the people support it. State boundaries are arbitrary, the will of the people less so.

100,000?  Where do you live? 

Canada. Where we let PEI be a province.

I personally support a plan dividing the entire world into states of between 100,000 and 100,000,000 people (with 500,000 - 50,000,000 being optimal). States would be based on modern political boundaries, but residents could hold referendums to join new states or form new states afterwards to form states with boundaries that aren't arbitrary.

[minionofmidas]

While I'd be fully prepared to admit the sovereign Republic of North Colorado to the United Nations (eh... they seat Liechtenstein), I think the US Constitution bans that.

No, it'd be possible.  Colorado and the United States would have to agree to the retrocession of North Colorado to territorial status and then the United States could give the territory independence without even a change to the Constitution.  Indeed, they wouldn't even have to give the North Coloradans a chance to stop the process.

Cool. I call on the US gov't to follow that course of action, then.

[Skill and Chance]

The only even remote real world possibility is a split of CA and or Texas IMO.  And they would have to keep gaining lots of EVs.  A trade of a Republican inland CA state for a Democratic South Texas state would work nicely.

[barfbag]

Successions are always silly and go nowhere.

[Franzl]

Successions are always silly and go nowhere.

So I guess the North Korean solution is best, "eternal president"?

[ilikeverin]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/11/rural-colorado-residents-vote-to-secede-as-metro-areas-shift-more-liberal.html

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what

[barfbag]

Successions are always silly and go nowhere.

So I guess the North Korean solution is best, "eternal president"?

I'm from the U.S. I was referring to States in our country who try to secede. That's it.

[Franzl]

Successions are always silly and go nowhere.

So I guess the North Korean solution is best, "eternal president"?

I'm from the U.S. I was referring to States in our country who try to secede. That's it.

Read your original post again.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/11/rural-colorado-residents-vote-to-secede-as-metro-areas-shift-more-liberal.html

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what

There's no way a state an get around having equal population in districts, but I suppose a state could require that districts be as equal as possible in both population and area.  You'd end probably up with a bunch of wedge shaped districts if you did that, with a narrow urban tip and a rural base.  But such districts would likely dilute rural power, not enhance it.

[minionofmidas]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/11/rural-colorado-residents-vote-to-secede-as-metro-areas-shift-more-liberal.html

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what

There's no way a state an get around having equal population in districts, but I suppose a state could require that districts be as equal as possible in both population and.  You'd end probably up with a bunch of wedge shaped districts if you did that, with a narrow urban tip and a rural base. 

I dread to think what 35 state senate districts would look like. (Incidentally this map is 2 safe D - 1 lean D - 3 lean R - 1 safe R.)

[minionofmidas]

Metro closeup.