The Three-State Solution

Last month I mentioned a bill that would sever Washington into two states separated by the Cascade Mountains. Now The Stranger, the more alternative of Seattle's two alternative weeklies, is endorsing the idea.

The whole piece is worth reading, but I want to zero in on a passage close to the end:

It's true that if Eastern Washington became its own (red) state, we would be adding two new conservative senators to the national political mix. That though is easily solvable: Washington, D.C. has been pressing for statehood for years, but the idea has never moved forward because Republicans don't want to create another liberal state. So, in a modern Missouri Compromise, the feds could create two new states at once, a conservative one over here, and a liberal one in the other Washington.

I've been idly advocating a similar idea for years, except it involved liberating western Maryland rather than eastern Washington. Alternately we could free the Eastern Shore, but in 10 years it might be dominated by Democratic commuters; before you know it we'd be facing a joint GOP/Earth First! plot to blow up the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Bill Kauffman makes the case for splitting up California, New York, and Kansas here.