DNYUZ<\/p>\n
More than 150 years after Maryland stuck with the Union, the state is facing a peculiar request by its three westernmost counties to secede.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers from the counties \u2014 Garrett, Allegany and Washington \u2014 say their rural, conservative constituents have long been fed up with their overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic fellow Marylanders. They say they have more in common with the folks on the other side of the country road in neighboring West Virginia.<\/p>\n
The secession plan was floated by six Republican lawmakers from the counties who wrote a letter to Republican legislative leaders in West Virginia this month asking whether their counties could join that state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe this arrangement may be mutually beneficial for both states and for our local constituencies,\u201d they wrote. \u201cPlease advise on next steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposal, like similar ones in the past, seems destined to go nowhere. Maryland\u2019s top Democrats scoffed at the idea, although West Virginia\u2019s Republican governor, Jim Justice, and top lawmakers there seized the opportunity to brag about all the ways they think their state is better than Maryland.<\/p>\n
The idea has tapped into deep-seated feelings of alienation in western Maryland, a mountainous panhandle wedged against the Mason-Dixon line, where talk of secession has been brewing for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re kind of ignored up here, and that\u2019s why people are thinking West Virginia might be an option if they keep ignoring us,\u201d said Michael Swauger, the owner of a barber shop in Grantsville, Md., a small town in Garrett County.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see very little from the state of Maryland,\u201d Mr. Swauger, 65, said. \u201cWe seem to be the last county to get anything to benefit us, moneywise or roads or anything to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Swauger said, however, that he was not sure that life would be better in West Virginia than in western Maryland, which needs better-paying jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have to see what West Virginia would offer,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not better off financially than us here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others in the area dismiss it all as a purely partisan political stunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d said Mike Koch, a founder and owner of FireFly Farms Creamery and Market in Accident, Md., in Garrett County. \u201cRedrawing state lines because you\u2019ve got a couple of displeased constituents doesn\u2019t make any sense. How about we unwind the gerrymandering before we upset the intention of the original 13 colonies?\u201d<\/p>\n
Wendell R. Beitzel<\/a>, a Western Maryland delegate who signed the letter, acknowledged the proposal faces daunting odds, but said it was not a political stunt.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be doing this if we didn\u2019t feel there is a strong sense of unrest and unhappiness among people in our rural area of the state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Beitzel, who represents parts of Garrett and Allegany Counties, said his rural constituents have been asking to leave Maryland for years.<\/p>\n He ticked off a litany of hot topics that concern them: the state\u2019s crackdown on fracking, mask mandates and the\u00a0teaching of racial issues in schools<\/a>. He also described what he views as an endless stream of regulations from progressive leaders in Annapolis, the state capital, some 200 miles to the east.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people out here keep contacting the legislators from this region and saying: \u2018Why don\u2019t we go to West Virginia? Why don\u2019t we go to West Virginia?\u2019\u201d Mr. Beitzel said. \u201cAll the legislators have been hounded from our constituents to check in on the possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Maryland is no stranger to division. During the Civil War, many residents north and west of Baltimore were loyal to the Union, while those in the eastern and southern regions of the state were sympathetic to the Confederacy, said Ric Cottom, an author of\u00a0\u201cMaryland in the Civil War: A House Divided.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n This secession movement, Mr. Cottom said, seemed driven by \u201cTrumpian politics.\u201d All three counties overwhelmingly\u00a0supported Donald J. Trump<\/a>\u00a0in the 2020 presidential election, even as Joseph R. Biden Jr. won statewide.<\/p>\n The effort is one of a number of similar revolts nationwide. In May, residents of five eastern Oregon counties said in nonbinding votes that\u00a0they would like to leave Oregon<\/a>\u00a0and join with their more like-minded conservative neighbors farther east in Idaho.<\/p>\n Residents of Northern California and southern Oregon have also hatched the idea of\u00a0a state that would be called Jefferson<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Constitution specifies that new configurations of states must be formed with the consent of the affected states and Congress, said\u00a0Cynthia L. Nicoletti<\/a>, a legal historian and professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law.<\/p>\n So Maryland\u2019s three westernmost counties would need the approval of the Maryland legislature, which is overwhelmingly Democratic; as well as West Virginia\u2019s legislature, which is controlled by Republicans; and Congress, where Democrats hold slim majorities, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI find it hard to imagine that the Maryland legislature would vote to allow them to leave and thus consent to divide the state,\u201d Professor Nicoletti said.<\/p>\n Eric G. Luedtke<\/a>, the majority leader of the Maryland House, called the proposal \u201can unnecessarily divisive political stunt.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t a thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no process for this. So the legislators are just making this up.\u201d<\/p>\n An N.A.A.C.P. branch in Allegany County said the lawmakers who support secession were responding to voters who \u201cfeel that they would be better represented by a state that is more than 93 percent white and without the same level of diversity generally as the state of Maryland.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is disappointing and alarming,\u201d the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, expressed puzzlement\u00a0on Twitter<\/a>. \u201cThis has probably left a lot of people confused \u2014 including many Western Marylanders \u2014 and we certainly hope that the legislators will provide some clarity here,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n West Virginia\u2019s legislative leaders and governor, however, eagerly embraced the proposal as an opportunity to claim that their state was a far better place to live and work than Maryland.<\/p>\n In\u00a0a speech on Friday<\/a>, Governor Justice said he would advance a resolution to support the counties\u2019 secession plan at the next special session.<\/p>\n Mr. Justice said it was obvious why the counties would want to join his state, pointing to its staunch support for the coal and natural gas industry, gun rights, opposition to abortion rights and abundant natural beauty.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re absolutely standing here with open arms,\u201d the governor said. \u201cWe\u2019d welcome, absolutely, these counties and be tickled to death to have them.\u201d<\/p>\n The post\u00a0Bye, Maryland? Lawmakers in 3 Counties Float a Plan to Secede From the State.\u00a0<\/a>appeared first on\u00a0New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n ___ Bye, Maryland? Lawmakers in 3 Counties Float a Plan to Secede From the State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhttps:\/\/dnyuz.com\/2021\/10\/22\/bye-maryland-lawmakers-in-3-counties-float-a-plan-to-secede-from-the-state\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"