Did they win? Partially. Five of those counties voted for secession, and six voted not to secede. Here are the county-by-county results (from The Denver Post):
PHILLIPS COUNTY
Yes...............1,114 (62.2%) *
No...............676 (37.7%)
YUMA COUNTY
Yes...............57 (81.4%) *
No...............13 (18.5%)
ELBERT COUNTY
Yes...............3,810 (42.5%)
No...............5,137 (57.4%) *
WELD COUNTY
Yes...............25,291 (43.0%)
No...............33,460 (56.9%) *
SEDGWICK COUNTY
Yes...............437 (42.9%)
No...............580 (57.0%) *
KIT CARSON COUNTY
Yes...............1,452 (54.2%) *
No...............1,226 (45.7%)
CHEYENNE COUNTY
Yes...............570 (62.2%) *
No...............346 (37.7%)
LINCOLN COUNTY
Yes...............806 (44.5%)
No...............1,005 (55.4%) *
WASHINGTON COUNTY
Yes...............1,115 (58.1%) *
No...............802 (41.8%)
LOGAN COUNTY
Yes...............1,903 (41.5%)
No...............2,676 (58.4%) *
MOFFAT COUNTY
Yes...............1,768 (45.2%)
No...............2,139 (54.7%) *
While this was an interesting political event, it really amounted to nothing more than a teabagger temper tantrum. The counties could not secede and form a new state without approval from the state legislature (or a statewide vote) and the approval of the U.S. Congress -- and those stand a worse chance of succeeding than a snowball has of surviving a summer in the Mojave Desert.
Plus, now the state legislature knows how badly those counties hate the state, so... Yeah, good luck in getting the plums in that next state budget.
ReplyDeleteHere in Washington STate, we hear shouts about needing an "eastern Washington" every so often...that side of the mountains is 'red' and the western side is mostly blue and more populous. If the split happened, it would be like Red States in the South....getting more tax dollars than it gave, because it couldn't manage to fully support it's needs.
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