February 22, 2005
The Great Divide
A bill is circulating around the Washington state legislature to request that the federal government create the nation's fifty-first state...
...out of eastern Washington.
Fun game, kids! Pick some counties at random to make a new state!
Washington's east-west divide along the Cascade Range is well-known in the Pacific Northwest. But, for those of you scratching your heads, here's a brief summary:
King County, which includes much of the Seattle metro area, holds around 1/3 of the state's voters, and leans heavily in the Blue Zone (read: unquestioning [read: unsettling, in my view] Democratic loyalty). Three of the state's other heavily-populated counties, Snohomish, Thurston, and Pierce, join with King to make the Puget Sound metro area: a conglomerate of urban sprawl hugging Interstate 5 and, thanks largely to Seattle, "leaning" in the urban Democrat camp. Thus, in Olympia, the Puget Sound metro area often calls the shots. And, in federal and state elections (even our recent close governor's race, with Dem. Christine Gregoire beating Republican Dino Rossi by a mere handful of votes, if at all), King County often calls the shots.
Eastern Washington, largely rural, less populated, and certainly more conservative than the Puget Sound area, has been feeling a bit neglected. Claims that urban laws and policies decided in Olympia hurt eastern Washington's agriculture-based economy and rural way-of-life have largely fallen on deaf ears. Now, though, it seems that eastern Washington is fighting back. Since most of this east-west battle has a convenient dividing line (the Cascade range), Washington's twenty east-of-the-Cascades counties want their own state.
Will it happen? Probably not.
Still, it's interesting to see yet again how the urban-rural divide is... well... widening.
Posted by James at February 22, 2005 01:30 PM