Actually, the largest metro in this ill-conceived proposed state would be Spokane. Of course, that wouldn’t really improve the situation since one of the legislative districts with the highest poverty rate in the state is in Spokane (hence, my earlier designation of “Western West Virginia.”)
Umm, it Upstate that politically dominates downstate. Otherwise why is the state being ordered by the courts to fund NYC schools at a level equal to the upstate schools? And why does Bruno, from Saratoga, want to end rent control in NYC?
So who gets the ski resorts? I anticipate a bitter fight over those. The Apple Maggot Collective won’t get Alpental without a major sassing out from our crack legion of Barista Commandos.
I was under the impression that state aid to schools shot a lot more money down the river than before the change. Rent control? I dunno about Bruno, but I’d kill it if I could because it’s totally screwed up the housing market and the reason it was introduced in the first place is long gone.
I’ll see those and raise you the stupid “assault weapons” ban, anyway.
Who gets Mount St. Helens?
Can we exile Tim Eyman to the other side? If so, all for it.
I can see why some of the grumbling…28% of the state lives in King county alone and only 22% live east of the Cascades - so they do get outvoted a lot. But, they are more than amply compensated.
The biggest downside is possibly presidential politics. Instead of 11 electoral votes as a block, it’ll change to 9 and 4, which may not be a good thing at all.
Wow, talk about your potentially explosive issues…
Daniel
Leastern Washington would also suddenly gain 2 Senators as opposed to, well, none. My maternal grandparents (and great-aunts and uncles) lived in Spokane and having visited the place multiple times when I was younger, I can completely understand why my mother and her sisters all fled shrieking to the greener, more gentle and civlized areas of Seattle/Tacoma/Bellevue and, uh, Kent.
Okay, so it’s not perfect over here either.
What happened to Cascadia? 
Anyway, Washington state is amazing. You have desert, temperate rainforest, mountains, and seashore all in the same compact region. (Yes, it damned well is compact. If you doubt it you can come live here, three and a half hours from any town you’ve ever heard of.) Montanans are the first to tell you that you can’t eat scenery, but it would be a shame to split it up.
If, however, you could join with British Columbia, Oregon, and Northern California and split off from the Union and Canada, that would be good. Alaska would probably throw in as well, come to think of it.
My bad. I tend to forget about Spokane. Nice town, though.
My ass. We already have Monte Benham over here. Y’all can keep that fucker Eyman.
Heh. Didn’t realize there were so many Washingtonians here.
No, let’s not split up the state. I’m perfectly happy to let Seattle outvote everyone over here, because my fellow easterners seem to have their collective heads up their asses. They would’ve elected Nethercutt and Rossi, damnit!
Just leave us out of it. We’re going with B.C.
Damn, I didn’t know there were so many of my fellow Lincolnians here!
Which side does that schauzer’s ass Eyman live on? Hate that guy. The Wenatchee public transit system was just starting to get good - routes running every half hour instead of every hour, more routes, and free rides. Then Eyman, shouting “$30 license plates!”, yanked the rug out from under it.
Timmy lives on the wet side; Mukilteo I believe. His parents live in Yakima, so we get to hear about that boy all the time. Of course, since I-695 was determined unconstitutional, really we can complain about our stupid legislators and that psuedo-Dem Locke for the immediate rolling over when the initiative ‘passed’. That was a perfect opportunity to fix the MVET instead of just repealing it. I certainly didn’t save enough money on my tabs over the last few years to make up for the way our local government is taking a huge budgetary hit. Fucking little-picture voters!
Phase42, I have a hard time considering Wenatchee to be the apple capitol, though y’all in North Central WA do more apples than we in Central Central WA for sure now. I live in the home of Tree Top and we used to consider ourselves a big apple producer too. Hell, I guess you can keep the appellation (heh) and I can just enjoy living only minutes from “the Palm Springs of Washington”. (there aren’t enough :rolleyes: in the world)
I did.
Public transportation in Spokane has been crap for years, before and after I-695… I think the good has outweighed the bad for us so far.
The MVET did not only fund public transportation. There were other fees collected along with the MVET; most of these fees were abolished along with the MVET when the legislators did their cowardly thing, including some fees for local public transporation. Another fee that was collected along with the MVET included Air Quality fees that have subsequently had to be absorbed by General Fund dollars in order to continue to receive matching federal dollars.
Most of the things that were being funded by the MVET had to either go or be absorbed by General Fund or local government funding. Local law enforcement budgets (city/county level) were heavily funded by the MVET. Whether this was an appropriate funding source or not, our legislators knee-jerk response to the passing of I-695 hurt local governments in a way that they have not been able to recover from.
Many people who voted for I-695 did not understand the many things that it funded and the consequences of removing that funding without any alternative source of moneys. IMO, little-picture voters suck. All they seem to see is the immediate money in the pocket benefits of something and not the long-term effects. It pisses me off. YMMV.
I grew up in the pestilent hellhole called Moses Lake, WA, and I would be perfectly delighted to see eastern Washington split itself off from the fucking universe.
Okay, maybe I’m a bit bitter.
Downside: two more Republican US Senators.
Upside: Dino and Chris can BOTH be governors, and maybe then we can shut up about the whole mess!
Frankly, I’m still on the “Nation of Pacifica” bandwagon (British Columbia, Western Washington and Oregon, Northern California), which, god knows, may become possible if Bush gets so entangled in the Middle East that he can’t even spare the manpower to stop us. But that’s just a dream.
So we’re left with the “two more republican senators” problem. I propose a new Democratic strategy: for every rural area of a blue state that wants to split off, start a similar movement in an urban area of a red state. This means that we can let Eastern Washington go (and good riddance!), but only if we manage to make Austin its own state.
Wow, that isn’t a bad plan, actually…
Dino’s actually from Sammamish in Eastern King county, so he’d still be screwed, cause he will be in the ‘liberal’ part of Washington State.
There is actually language in the Act of Congress that brought Texas into the union, that allows Texas to split into at least five states if it wants to in the future:
*“New states, of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said state of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said state, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the federal constitution.” *
Linkee
So the State of Austin is not that much of a pipe-dream