Sunday, October 13, 2013

More Rural Voters Threaten Secession From State

This time it's Western Maryland, and not Northern Colorado:
Strzelczyk, a father of five from New Windsor, Maryland, told the conservative Tea Party group in Westminster, about 50 miles north of Washington, that the uphill fight for secession was essential because of gerrymandering by Democrats.
"We are basically enslaved to one political party. There is no simple way around that," Strzelczyk said in a movie-themed mall restaurant, with a life-size cutout of John Wayne as part of the backdrop.
He was also fed up with rising fees and taxes and a state land-use plan he sees as government meddling. But the last straw, he said, was the state's passage this year of one of the toughest gun control laws in the country.
Maryland's five western counties - Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Carroll and Frederick - stretching east from the Allegheny Mountains, stand in sharp contrast to urban areas centered on Baltimore and the Washington suburbs.
Census Bureau figures show the area has 11 percent of Maryland's population of 5.9 million and much of it has significantly lower median income than the state as a whole. It has a much higher percentage of white residents, compared with 58 percent of the state overall.
Garrett County Commissioner Gregan Crawford said the mountainous county had good relations with the state capital Annapolis, and with Washington, and had received extra state money for education and sports events.
"When you look at the reality of what it would take to secede, it's really, I think, a folly," Crawford said.
A spokeswoman for Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley had no comment on the Western Maryland Initiative.
Well at least Northern Colorado has a bunch of oil and gas money coming in.  These guys are being subsidized by the rest of the state and are still wanting to leave.  Things are tough enough in rural areas without folks trying to make themselves worse off.  I just don't understand these folks.

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