‘Liberty State’ vote won’t be on Franklin County ballot in November
Franklin County residents won’t get the chance to vote about making Eastern Washington into the 51st state.
After not hearing whether the Liberty State supporters would pay the $4,000 to get the measure on the ballot, the commissioners decided to drop the matter.
The Liberty State movement is aimed at dividing the state at the crest of the Cascade Mountains to form a new state from the Eastern Washington counties.
For the last couple weeks, supporters have been going to commissioners to ask if they would place a non-binding advisory vote on the ballot.
The organizers planned to use those results to put pressure on the state Legislature and Congress to let them create their own state.
“We’ve received no communication from the Liberty State folks that they’re willing to pay the extra $4,000,” County Administrator Keith Johnson told the commissioners on Tuesday. “So it seems that we’re at the position now that it’s probably not appropriate to add that at this time.”
The county administrator polled five Eastern Washington counties, including Grant, Whitman, Ferry, Benton and Columbia. Johnson said none of them plan to put the measure on the ballot.
Spokane county commissioners decided not to listen to the proposal.
Prosecutor Shawn Sant said he spoke with coordinator Dani Bolyard and they talked about the challenge of funding elections in a handful of counties if not every county agreed to hold the election.
Commissioner Bob Koch said if a quarter of the 20 Eastern Washington counties weren’t putting the measure on the ballot, he didn’t see a reason pursue it.
Without a promise on who was paying and without seeing the language of the measure, Commissioner Brad Peck said he couldn’t support it.
“I’m out as they say,” Peck said. “I can’t support it any further.”
The measure has met with mixed support from people in the area. Supporters have said they would look forward to having a state separated from its more liberal western side.
Opponents said the measure simply creates more division in the state.
51st state movement
The movement is directed by Spokane Valley Rep. Matt Shea, but it’s not the first effort to split the state in two.
Shea and fellow Spokane Valley Rep. Bob McCaslin sponsored a resolution in 2019 to the Legislature asking the Congress to divide the state. The resolution failed to get a hearing,
McCaslin has been part of other efforts to split the state, including one that Rep. Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, put his name to in 2015.
Klippert has thrown his support behind this current effort by showing up at rallies and talking with leaders.
While Congress would need to sign off on any move to split the state in two, the supporters of the measure believe the urban centers of Western Washington are determining what happens in Eastern Washington.
“Thus, the rural side of the state is failing to be represented on every major issue in the last 30 years,” the organizers wrote in the presentation given to the commissioners. “On the other side, legislation dear to the urban majority has been hampered to the consternation of many in Seattle.”